Evolutionary trend analysis of nanogenerator research based on a novel perspective of phased bibliographic coupling

To evaluate the rapid growth of research on nanogenerators and the emergence of promising applications related to nanogenerators, evolutionary trends in the relevant research are analyzed based on phased bibliographic coupling (PBC). Through the novel method of PBC, the evolutionary trend of the relevant research on nanogenerators is roughly categorized into three phases, and the characteristic research topics, issues, articles and terms are discriminated and visualized. Beyond the traditional literature review of domain experts on nanotechnology, this article provides a novel means of visualizing more information about the evolution of the nanogenerator research over the past ten years, based on a more quantitative approach.