Researchers Reveal Material That Turns your clothes into a charger

It could mean a mobile powered by your pants, and a smartwatch charged from your shirt. Researchers have discovered a
radical new way to create electricity using an atom thin generator. It produces electricity when bent or stretched, and
researchers say it could be sewn into clothing and even used in medical implants. The team from Columbia Engineering
and the Georgia Institute of Technology say the material, molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) could be used in wearable
technology. ‘This material – just a single layer of atoms – could be made as a wearable device, perhaps integrated into
clothing, to convert energy from your body movement to electricity and power wearable sensors or medical devices, or
perhaps supply enough energy to charge your cell phone in your pocket,’ said James Hone, professor of mechanical
engineering at Columbia and co-leader of the research.  In a paper published online October 15, 2014, in the journal
Nature, research groups from the two institutions demonstrate the mechanical generation of electricity from the two-
dimensional (2D) MoS2material.  The piezoelectric effect in this material had previously been predicted theoretically.
PIEZOELETRICITY
Piezoelectricity is a well-known effect in which stretching or compressing a material causes it to generate an electrical
voltage (or the reverse, in which an applied voltage causes it to expand or contract). But for materials of only a few atomic
thicknesses, no experimental observation of piezoelectricity has been made, until now. The observation provides a new
property for two-dimensional materials such as molybdenum disulfide, opening the potential for new types of
mechanically controlled electronic devices.

‘Proof of the piezoelectric effect and piezotronic effect adds new functionalities to these two-dimensional materials,’ said
Zhong Lin Wang, Regents’ Professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Materials Science and Engineering and a co-leader of the
research. The materials community is excited about molybdenum disulfide, and demonstrating the piezoelectric effect in it
adds a new facet to the material.’ The research could open the door to development of new applications for the material
and its unique properties. ‘This is the first experimental work in this area and is an elegant example of how the world
becomes different when the size of material shrinks to the scale of a single atom,’ Hone added. ‘With what we’re learning,
we’re eager to build useful devices for all kinds of applications.’
Ultimately, Zhong Lin Wang noted, the research could lead to complete atomic-thick nanosystems that are self-powered by
harvesting mechanical energy from the environment. This study also reveals the piezotronic effect in two-dimensional
materials for the first time, which greatly expands the application of layered materials for human-machine interfacing,
robotics, MEMS, and active flexible electronics.
Science

Credits:techodrum