A Method for Quantitatively Separating the Piezoelectric Component from the as-received "Piezoelectric" Signal

Abstract Polymer-based piezoelectric devices are promising for developing future wearable force sensors, nanogenerators, and implantable electronics etc. The electric signals generated by them are often assumed as solely coming from piezoelectric effect. However, triboelectric signals originated from contact electrification between the piezoelectric devices and the contacted objects can produce non-negligible interfacial electron transfer, which is often combined with the piezoelectric signal to give a triboelectric-piezoelectric hybrid output, leading to an exaggerated measured “piezoelectric” signal. Herein, a simple and effective method is proposed for quantitatively identifying and extracting the piezoelectric charge from the hybrid signal. The triboelectric and piezoelectric parts in the hybrid signal generated by a poly(vinylidene fluoride)-based device are clearly differentiated, and their force and charge characteristics in the time domain are identified. This work presents an effective method to elucidate the true piezoelectric performance in practical measurement, which is crucial for evaluating piezoelectric materials fairly and correctly.