Study of Triboelectric Potential for Tunable Contact-Electrification Field-Effect Transistors

Tribotronics is an original field studying the coupling bet- ween triboelectricity and semiconductors. Contact-electrification field-effect transistors (CE-FETs) have emerged as promising tribotronic devices capable of implementing novel electromechanical devices for human-robot interfacing, sensing platforms, and active flexible electronics in the near future. This letter presents the design, fabrication, and characterization of CE-FETs consisting of a triboel- ectric nanogenerator (TENG)-using zinc oxide and polyethylene terephthalate as tribopositive and tribonegative materials, respecti- vely, coupled to a driven metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor ( mosfet ). Optimizing the triboelectric properties of selected materials and operating TENG with frequencies ranging between 2 and 10 Hz and electrode distances ranging from 2 to 10 mm, the modulation of the output characteristics of the mosfet via external mechanical forces has been demonstrated.