Investigation of new advanced materials and structures for development of energy harvesting devices

智能生活的健康概念是将无数的光电/电子组件和传感器嵌入小型设备（智能手表、智能手机、平板电脑）和大型设备（无人机、电动汽车、机器人）中，这是一个迷人的时代。然而，这些电子设备遇到的一个主要问题是它们对连接电源的依赖，阻碍了它们在健康监测/护理、国防、通信、物联网和智能城市/建筑中的应用。这对能源生产提出了巨大的需求，从而提高了其价格，并使用不环保的生产路线来科普需求。为了克服这一挑战，一个具有成本效益的“绿色”能源解决方案，能够从周围环境中收集浪费的能源，将使城市更具可持续性（SDG 11），并通过改善空气质量（SDG 13）减少对气候的影响，还有助于实现更负担得起的清洁能源（SDG 7）为传感平台和电子设备提供动力，同时减少其停机时间。AimsThis项目旨在研究通过物理气相沉积（PVD）方法沉积的新型先进材料，该项目将利用James Watt纳米制造中心（JWNC）的先进PVD技术，在洁净室环境中沉积介电薄膜材料。优化材料特性（结晶度、表面电荷密度、介电常数、粗糙度、内应力、硬度等）使用所得薄膜作为活性材料，用于开发摩擦电和压电纳米发电机（TENG和PENG）。为此，将使用先进的材料表征技术（SEM，EDX，拉曼，应力，AFM，光学轮廓术，光谱椭圆偏振仪和CPD）来表征所得的半导体薄膜，并将进行后处理（热退火和在受控气体环境下的RTA），以进一步优化材料特性，也在JWNC。此外，该项目还将包括使用JWNC最先进的光刻工具对TENG/PENG进行升级，以使其与便携式应用兼容（例如，为智能电话和可穿戴电子设备供电）。所得到的能量收集装置将与能量存储装置集成（即，通过电源管理模块（PMM）设计来优化器件的输出功率。此外，Python的使用对于通过理论距离依赖模型（DDM）模拟TENG/PENG功率输出至关重要。能源系统的有效性将在各种传感平台中进行测试，包括化学传感器和用于健康监测和污染监测等应用的光电探测器（即，二氧化碳和NO检测），以及小型机器人和无人机的能源。

Background The wholesome concept of smart life by the embedment of innumerable optoelectronic/electronic components and sensors in small devices (smart-watches, smart-phones, tablet) and larger ones (drones, electric-vehicles, robots) is fascinating and era-driven. However, a major issue encountered to these electronic devices is their dependence on a connected power source, hindering their applicability in health-monitoring/care, defence, communication, internet-of-things, and smart-cities/buildings. This has put an immense demand for energy generation which has consequently increased its price and use of non-environmentally friendly production routes to cope with the demand. To overcome this challenge, a cost-effective "greener" energy solution capable of harvesting wasted energy from surrounding environment will make cities to be more sustainable (SDG11) and less impactful on the climate through the improvement of the air quality (SDG13) also contributing to achieve more affordable and clean energy (SDG7) to power sensing platforms and electronics while reducing their downtimes.AimsThis project is aimed at investigating novel advanced materials deposited by physical vapor deposition (PVD) methods, to develop energy harvesting devices capable to power small electric devices and sensors.Project descriptionThe project will utilise state-of-the-art PVD technology available at James Watt Nanofabrication Centre (JWNC) for deposition of dielectric thin films materials at clean-room environment. Material properties will be optimised (crystallinity, surface charge density, dielectric permittivity, roughness, intrinsic stress, hardness, etc.) to use resulting films as active materials for the development of triboelectric and piezoelectric nanogenerators (TENG and PENG). For that, resulting semiconductor thin films will be characterised using techniques advanced material characterisation techniques (SEM, EDX, Raman, stress, AFM, optical profilometry, spectroscopic ellipsometry, and CPD) and will be post-treated (thermal annealing and RTA under controlled gas environment) to further optimise material properties, also at JWNC. Moreover, the project will also comprise the miniaturisation of the TENG/PENG using state-of-the-art lithography tools at JWNC to make the compatible with portable applications (e.g., powering smart phones, and wearable electronic devices). Resulting energy harvesting devices will be integrated with energy storage devices (i.e., supercapacitors) through power management modules (PMM) design to optimise the output power of the devices. Moreover, the use of Python will be essential to simulate TENG/PENG power output through the theoretical distance dependent model (DDM). Validity of the energy system will be tested in various sensing platforms, including chemical sensors, and photodetectors utilised in applications such as health monitoring and pollution monitoring (i.e., CO2 and NO detection), as well as energy sources for small robots and drones.