Water wave energy exhibits great potential to alleviate the global energy crisis. However, harvesting and utilizing wave energy are challenging due to its irregularity, randomness, and low frequency. Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) have gained significant attention for harvesting wave energy with high efficiency. This study presents a novel ellipsoidal, pendulum-like TENG integrating both liquid-liquid (L-L) and solid-solid (S-S) triboelectricity (LS-TENG). This innovative design enables continuous wave energy harvesting and self-powered marine environment monitoring under various conditions, including temperature, humidity, and light intensity. The binary immiscible liquids within the LS-TENG’s inner soft balloon create dynamic, and self-adjustable L-L contact interfaces, significantly increasing the L-L contact area and enhancing L-L contact electrification (CE). The unique self-adaptive, soft S-S contact increases the S-S contact area compared to traditional hard point contact, better adapting to the irregular movements of waves and promoting efficient S-S CE. The LS-TENG achieves highly efficient wave energy harvesting by coupling L-L and S-S CE. Furthermore, the unique soft contact design protects the S-S interfaces from mechanical wear and damage during long-term work. The LS-TENG's novel structure provides an innovative and effective way for water wave energy harvesting.

We fabricate a flexible hybrid nanogenerator (HNG), based on multilayered nanocomposite materials, which integrates a piezoelectric nanogenerator (PENG) and a triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) into a single structure with only two electrodes. The HNG enables enhancement of the electrical output of the nanogenerators. An open-circuit voltage of 280 V and a short-circuit current of 25 μA are achieved by a HNG of 2.5 cm × 2.5 cm in size, superior to the performance of previously reported HNGs. In addition, the energy-conversion process of the HNG relies on the working mechanism of both the PENG and TENG. The polarization direction and doping content of BTO are the two major factors that affect the electrical output. Biomechanical energy harvesting from walking motion or the bending of an arm is also demonstrated.

Nanomaterials show promising opportunities to address clinical problems (such as insufficient capture of circulating tumor cells; CTCs) via the high surface area-to-volume ratio and high affinity for biological cells. However, how to apply these nanomaterials as a nano-bio interface in a microfluidic device for efficient CTC capture with high specificity remains a challenge. In the present work, we first found that a titanium dioxide (TiO₂) nanorod array that can be conveniently prepared on multiple kinds of substrates has high affinity for tumor cells. Then, the TiO₂ nanorod array was vertically grown on the surface of a microchannel with hexagonally patterned Si micropillars via a hydrothermal reaction, forming a new kind of a micro-nano 3D hierarchically structured microfluidic device. The vertically grown TiO₂ nanorod array was used as a sensitive nano-bio interface of this 3D hierarchically structured microfluidic device, which showed high efficiency of CTC capture (76.7% ± 7.1%) in an artificial whole-blood sample.

The mechanism of strain-dependent luminescence is important for the rational design of pressure-sensing devices. The interband momentum-matrix element is the key quantity for understanding luminescent phenomena. We analytically solved an infinite quantum well (IQW) model with strain, in the framework of the 6 × 6 k∙p Hamiltonian for the valence states, to directly assess the interplay between the spin-orbit coupling and the strain-induced deformation potential for the interband momentum-matrix element. We numerically addressed problems of both the infinite and IQWs with piezoelectric fields to elucidate the effects of the piezoelectric potential and the deformation potential on the strain- dependent luminescence. The experimentally measured photoluminescence variation as a function of pressure can be qualitatively explained by the theoretical results.