Understanding the Potential Screening Effect through the Discretely Structured ZnO Nanorods Piezo Array

The potential screening effect of one-dimensional ZnO nanorods from carriers has been theoretically proved to severely limit its piezoelectricity, but its exact mechanism needs to be further revealed in experiments to guide the design of piezoelectric semiconductors. Here, a discretely structured design was proposed to prevent the free carriers from tunneling among adjacent ZnO nanorods for suppressing the screening effect. Piezoresponse force microscope and finite element analysis were employed in combination to uncover the underlying mechanism in experiment. Further, the output voltage of this discretely structured device was 1.62 times higher than that of the nondesigned device, which clearly authenticates this suppression behavior. Besides, this design prompts an unexpected improvement in flexibility, where the flexural modulus of this piezo-film was reduced by 35.74%. Notably, this work opens a new way to understand the potential screening effect, as expected, and to advance the development of piezo-electronics toward better piezoelectricity and more excellent flexibility.