Near-infrared irradiation induced remote and efficient self-healable triboelectric nanogenerator for potential implantable electronics

The rapid advancement of implantable electronics makes exploring a novel power source urgent. Self-healable triboelectric nanogenerator (SH-TENG) is an emerging and promising candidate based on the combination of triboelectric effect, electrostatic induction and self-healing action. In this work, we present a novel near-infrared (NIR) irradiation induced SH-TENG as potential implantable power source. With well-defined three-layer structure, the PDMS acts as triboelectric layer, epoxy resin-based polysulfide elastomer as healing-assisting layer, and SH/CNTs as self-healable electrostatic induction electrode layer, respectively. Due to the remotely-induced dynamic disulfide exchange reaction stimulated by NIR irradiation, the quickly generated heat can be transferred from the bottom up, leading to a zipper-like self-healing process in SH-TENG. The electrical performance, Qsc (~16 nC), Voc (~50 V) and Isc (0.6 μA), respectively can be restored even after repairing for 5 times. Devices can be simply scaled up like LEGO blocks by contacting the side faces upon NIR irradiation, while scaling up the electric output performance as well. The healing process of SH-TENG has also been demonstrated through chicken skin, owing to the high penetrating ability of NIR in biological tissues which is beneficial to potential implantable electronics.