Toward self-powered photodetection enabled by triboelectric nanogenerators

Photodetectors have been demonstrated to have broad applications in optical communication, environmental protection, biomedical monitoring, and so on. However, the applications of these photodetectors face great challenges due to the difficulties in powering these vastly distributed detectors and their limited photoresponsivity. At the same time, the invention of triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) provides a novel way for generating a high-voltage low-current power supply with well-controllable output, making a promising approach to trigger photodetection. This review article summarizes the existing research work on combining TENGs with photodetectors through four different configurations. These research studies achieved self-powered or active photodetectors enabled by TENGs, explored the novel photodetection mechanisms, and demonstrated TENG output for enhancing the photoresponsivity, which will promote the relevant research toward self-powered photodetection with greatly improved performance.