Enhanced energy harvesting based on surface morphology engineering of P(VDF-TrFE) film

Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) has great potential for its use as an energy harvesting material as it exhibits not only outstanding piezoelectric and electrostatic characteristics resulting from ferroelectric effects, but also remarkably robust stability against repeated mechanical stress compared to inorganic materials. We report enhanced performances of poly(vinylidenefluoride-co-trifluoroethylene) (P(VDF-TrFE)) based energy generators with wider range of selections of flexible substrates through a surface morphology engineering using solvent annealing method as the key technology for simple and cost-effective fabrication at room temperature. It is clearly revealed that a solvent annealed P(VDF-TrFE) film is crystallised at room temperature and that the surface morphology is changed from a rough surface into a smooth and flat surface with increasing annealing time. This surface morphology engineering results in 8 times enhanced output voltage and current of the energy generators because of well-aligned electrical dipoles. We also demonstrate a highly transparent and flexible energy generator by employing graphene electrodes with the solvent annealed P(VDF-TrFE) film, which can be effectively harvesting various mechanical energy sources. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.