High performance triboelectric skin with hierarchical wrinkled architecture pattern by plasma bombardment and plasma-polymer-fluorocarbon thin film

Triboelectric Nanogenerators (TENGs) are gaining attention for energy harvesting in the IoT era. Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) is a key material due to its electron attraction, and biocompatibility. However, PTFE’s low flexibility, and low transparency limit its applications. A Plasma Polymer Fluorocarbon (PPFC) thin film, created using a carbon nanotube-PTFE composite target, is proposed as an alternative. The PPFC thin film retains PTFE’s beneficial properties like high surface charge potential, and chemical resistance, while also being ultrathin and transparent. When coated on a stretchable, biocompatible Styrene-Ethylene-Butylene-Styrene (SEBS) substrate, the film forms wrinkles, enhancing surface contact area and hydrophobicity, which boosts TENG performance by increasing surface charge density. The study developed a PPFC-coated Hierarchical Wrinkled Architecture (HWA) nano-patterned TENG with dual-wavelength wrinkles via additional plasma treatment. It was successfully used in a transparent triboelectric raindrop energy harvester and a conformal artificial triboelectric skin.