Triboelectric nanogenerator module for circuit design and simulation

Abstract

Triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) technology is an emerging nanotechnology with potential applications in energy-harvesting electronics, self-powered electronics, high-voltage electronics, and other smart electronics. Electronic circuits, such as power management circuits and driving circuits, play key roles in the applications of TENGs; thus, because simulation is the most efficient and cost-effective way to design a circuit, the need to design TENG-related electric circuits through circuit simulation rather than through experiments is urgent. However, as power sources with unique output performances, TENGs do not exist in the device libraries of commonly used circuit simulation software, which prevents circuit designers without TENG expertise from designing TENG-related circuits and hinders the widespread development of TENG technology. In this work, we construct a TENG module based on the vertical contact-separation mode in commercial MATLAB software. The simulated outputs of the constructed TENG module, including voltage, current, power, and load-dependent characteristics, are in good agreement with theoretical results. Furthermore, we utilize this TENG-like power source to study the charging efficiency of a capacitor in a resistor-capacitor series circuit and demonstrate the interconnection with other application modules. The results of this work will allow load circuits for TENGs to be more easily designed by using computer-aided circuit simulations, which is of great significance to the development of TENG technology.