The study demonstrates enhanced charge transfer in energy harvesting from solid-solid contacts using a mechanical-transistor design, implying improved efficiency for applications.
The transistor-inspired switching effect has been discovered to significantly enhance energy-harvesting efficiency in liquid-solid contacts; however, its extension to solid-solid contacts remains to be explored. Here, we investigate the transistor-inspired switching effect in energy-harvesting from solid-solid contacts. We propose a mechanical-transistor triboelectric nanogenerator (MT-TENG) that integrates a transistor-inspired switching effect with an efficient conduction-driven triboelectric charge transfer mechanism during the contact-separation process, enabling multiple charging-discharging processes and thereby enhancing transferred charge. We conducted a systematic analysis of its working mechanism and verified its generality using a variety of materials. Experimental results show that the transferred charge of the MT-TENG is approximately 4.59 and 1.26 times higher than those of conventional CS-TENGs based on pure PDMS and PDMS-CNT, respectively. We also demonstrate self-powered wireless sensing and transmission systems powered by the MT-TENG. Overall, the additional discharge process renders the MT-TENG highly promising for efficient energy harvesting and self-powered sensing applications.
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Wang et al. (2026) studied this question.
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