Nanogenerator
Nanogenerator is a type of technology that converts mechanical/thermal energy as produced by small-scale physical change into electricity. Nanogenerator has three typical approaches: piezoelectric, triboelectric, and pyroelectric nanogenerators. Both the piezoelectric and triboelectric nanogenerators can convert the mechanical energy into electricity. However, the pyroelectric nanogenerators can be used to harvest thermal energy from a time-dependent temperature fluctuation.
Piezoelectric nanogenerator
A piezoelectric nanogenerator is an energy harvesting device converting the external kinetic energy into an electrical energy based on the energy conversion by nano-structured piezoelectric material. Although its definition may include any types of energy harvesting devices with nano-structure converting the various types of the ambient energy (e.g. solar power and thermal energy), it is used in most of times to specifically indicate the kinetic energy harvesting devices utilizing nano-scaled piezoelectric material after its first introduction in 2006.
