A Stretchable, Flexible Triboelectric Nanogenerator for Self‐Powered Real‐Time Motion Monitoring

Abstract

Abstract Stretchable triboelectric nanogenerators have attracted increasing interests in the field of wearable electronics. In this work, a stretchable and flexible triboelectric nanogenerator (SF‐TENG) with a ladder structure that consists of several single‐electrode TENG units on the elastic rubber substrate is developed. The structural design of the ladder‐shaped SF‐TENG is found to greatly improve the mechanical flexibility and stretching ability under small external force, and it works well even under the elongation of 120% and curvature of 90º. The SF‐TENG with optimized structure can have excellent linear response to tensile force and act as a strain sensor. The sensitivities of output voltage to tensile force and tensile displacement can reach 2.01 V N −1 and 0.0412 V mm −1 , respectively. Moreover, a SF‐TENG‐based data glove is fabricated to demonstrate the potential application of such TENG in the human–machine interaction through the stone–paper–scissors game.