Research Article

ISSN 1998-0124 CN 11-5974/O4

2019, 12(1): 000–000 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-021-3470-4

Enhancement of output power density in a modified

polytetrafluoroethylene surface using a sequential O2/Ar plasma
etching for triboelectric nanogenerator applications
Teerayut Prada1, Viyada Harnchana1,2 (), Anthika Lakhonchai3, Artit Chingsungnoen3 (), Phitsanu
Poolcharuansin3, Narong Chanlek4, Annop Klamchuen5, Prasit Thongbai1,2, and Vittaya Amornkitbamrung1,2
1
Department of Physics, Khon Kaen University, Khon Kaen 40002, Thailand
2
Institute of Nanomaterials Research and Innovation for Energy (IN-RIE), NANOTEC-KKU RNN on Nanomaterials Research and Innovation
for Energy, Khon Kaen University, Khon Kaen 40002, Thailand
3
Technological Plasma Research Unit, Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, Mahasarakham University, Maha Sarakham 44150,
Thailand
4
Synchrotron Light Research Institute (Public Organization), Nakhon Ratchasima 30000, Thailand
5
National Nanotechnology Center (NANOTEC), NSTDA, Pathum Thani 12120, Thailand

© Tsinghua University Press and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2021
Received: 19 December 2020 / Revised: 24 March 2021 / Accepted: 25 March 2021

ABSTRACT
In this work, the surface modification using a two-steps plasma etching has been developed for enhancing energy conversion
performance in polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG). Enhancing surface area by a powerful O2 and
Ar bipolar pulse plasma etching without the use of CF4 gas has been demonstrated for the first time. TENG with modified surface
PTFE using a sequential two-step O2/Ar plasma has a superior power density of 9.9 Wm−2, which is almost thirty times higher than
that of a pristine PTFE TENG. The synergistic combination of high surface area and charge trapping sites due to chemical bond
defects achieved from the use of a sequential O2/Ar plasma gives rise to the intensified triboelectric charge density and the
enhancement of power output of PTFE-based TENG. The effects of plasma species and plasma etching sequence on surface
morphologies and surface chemical species were investigated by a field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), atomic
force microscopy (AFM), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The correlation of surface morphology, chemical structure,
and TENG performance was elucidated. In addition, the applications of mechanical energy harvesting for lighting, charging capacitors,
keyboard sensing and operating a portable calculator were demonstrated.

KEYWORDS
two-step plasma etching, O2 and Ar plasma, CF4 free, triboelectric nanogenerator, power output enhancement

process [6–10], plasma etching [11–31], block copolymer method

1 Introduction
Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) have recently received
extensive attention as a new technology of energy harvesting
to serve the increasing demand of energy in the internet of
things (IoT) era. TENG has now become one of the most efficient
approaches to harvest mechanical energy at low frequencies
that offers numerous promising advantages including high
electrical power density, facile fabrication, and the ability to
harvest a wide range of mechanical energy forms. The operation
of TENG is based upon a combination of contact electrification
and electrostatic induction [1–3]. Energy conversion efficiency
is established to be a function of triboelectric charge density
upon contact electrification effect, which depends on a pair of
materials that should have a large difference in their electro-
negativities [4, 5]. Apart from material selection, contact area is
regarded as a crucial factor that influences TENG performance
by increasing surface charge density upon electrification event.
Many approaches have therefore been proposed for modifying
surface morphologies of polymeric materials, such as lithography
[32, 33], microneedle-structured method [34, 35], and chemical
treatment [36–38].
Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), or Teflon, is a commonly
used material because of F atom makes it the most attractive to
electrons. In addition, properties of PTFE, which are chemical
resistance, thermal resistance, low coefficient of friction or
good lubricity, and biocompatibility also provide a variety of
applications in TENG device [11, 25, 27]. Electrification effect
in PTFE is generally enhanced by surface modification which
can essentially improve the electrical output of the PTFE-based
TENGs [39–43]. The majority of reported PTFE-based TENGs
employed inductively coupled plasma (ICP) etching [11–31],
while other technique, such as sanding with sandpaper, was
also demonstrated [42, 44]. ICP is known as one of the most
effective routes to create nanostructures on polymeric material
surfaces by using tetrafluoromethane (CF4), oxygen (O2), and
argon (Ar) gases [28–30, 45]. Since CF4 is toxic to humans and
environment, avoiding the use of CF4 gas would be beneficial
for the fabrication of high-performance PTFE-based TENG.

Address correspondence to Viyada Harnchana, viyada@kku.ac.th; Artit Chingsungnoen, artit.c@msu.ac.th

2 Nano Res.
In this work, the surface modification of PTFE with the
two-step or sequential O2/Ar plasma treatment using a bipolar
pulsed system was developed. Asymmetric bipolar pulses
with major negative bias voltage produce the surface etching
as well as the sputtering process, which can hence enhance the
etching rate without the use of CF4 gas. Despite O2 and Ar are
common plasma species and known as physical and chemical
etching agents, to the best of our knowledge, the use of these
two gases in a two-step etching process for PTFE in TENG
application has not been reported so far. This unprecedented
CF4 free etching technique offered an immense improvement in
TENG performance compared to that of unmodified PTFE.
The effects of plasma gas species and plasma treatment sequence
on the modified surface morphologies and surface chemistries,
as well as the correlation to the electrical output of the PTFE-
based TENGs were illustrated.
2 Experimental
2.1 Materials preparation
The commercial PTFE in sheet form with a thickness of 1 mm
was employed as a triboelectric material. The samples with the
size of 2 cm × 2 cm were cleaned prior to plasma treatment by
ultrasonicated in ethanol for 10 min and methanol for 10 min,
and finally dried in an oven at 80 °C for 2 h.
2.2 Plasma treatment
The plasma treatment was carried out in a capacitively coupled
plasma (CCP) reactor. The parallel plates with a diameter of
19 cm were used as the power and ground electrodes. The spacing
between them was held at 12 cm. The bottom electrode was
connected to the bipolar pulse power supply (AE Pinnacle
PLUS+, Advanced Energy) and the top electrode was grounded.
The PTFE specimens were placed on the bottom electrode.
The vacuum system was employed to retain a background
pressure of 4 × 10−3 Pa. The O2 and Ar gases were supplied and
controlled by a mass flow controller with a flow rate of 10 sccm.
The power of 100 W and a frequency of 50 kHz were used to
sustain the plasma. In the first step of plama treatment, PTFE
Figure 1 (a) SEM and AFM micrographs with contact angles. (b) Schematic of the two-step O2/Ar plasma process for surfaces of (i) pristine PTFE, (ii)
O2 plasma, and (iii) O2/Ar plasma-treated PTFEs.
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specimens were exposed to Ar or O2 plasma for 3 min, and
another 1 min with different plasma species for the second step
plasma treatment. In addition, the effect of plasma generation
power and exposure time of Ar and O2 plasma on surface
morphologies were investigated and presented by scanning
electron microscopy (SEM) images in Figs. S1, S2, and S3 in the
Electronic Supplementary Material (ESM).
2.3 Characterizations
Morphologies of samples were probed by a field emission SEM
(FESEM) (SNE-4500M, SEC) and atomic force microscopy (AFM)
(XE-120, PARK). Chemical state and elemental composition
analysis were performed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy
(XPS) at beamline 5.3 of the Synchrotron Light Research
Institute (SLRI), Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand. The contact
angle was measured using FTA1000 drop shape instrument B
frame system.
2.4 Electrical output measurement
Energy conversion performances of the fabricated PTFE based
TENGs were carried out under a vertical contact-separation
mode at the frequency ranging from 2–9 Hz with the applied
mechanical force of 1–10 N measured by AEP transducer
load cell type C2S. The plasma-treated PTFE with Ag electrical
contact deposited in the back side was used as bottom electrode,
and Aluminum (Al) sheet with the thickness of 0.5 mm and the
size of 4 cm × 4 cm was used as top electrode. Electrical voltage
and current outputs were measured using an oscilloscope
(Tektronix DPO2002B) and a digital ammeter (Keithley
DMM6500), respectively.
3 Results and discussion
3.1 Plasma effect on the PTFE surface topography and
electrical output
SEM images with contact angles, and AFM topology micrographs
of the PTFE, O2 plasma and two-step O2/Ar plasma treated
specimens are presented in Fig. 1(a), and those of all the plasma-
treated PTFE samples (PTFE, Ar, O2, Ar/O2, and O2/Ar plasma)
Nano Res.
are shown in Fig. S4 in the ESM. Surface morphologies of the
plasma-treated PTFE were significantly different compared
with that of the unmodified one, which was relatively smooth.
The process of O2 and Ar plasma created apparently different
surface pattern characteristics, O2 plasma created nanowire
structures while Ar plasma produced ridge patterns. In the
two-step plasma treated PTFE samples including Ar/O2 and
O2/Ar, the main features of PTFE surfaces followed the initial
shapes of the first plasma step with increasing depth.
O2 plasma-treated PTFE surface with nanowire structures
exhibited superhydrophobic property with the highest contact
angle of 157o. Considering the single-step plasma processes,
O2 plasma-treated PTFE had higher etching efficiency than Ar
plasma as evidenced by its higher surface roughness and
higher surface area. This also contributed to its highest contact
angle among all the plasma treated samples. The two-step plasma
PTFE samples treated with Ar/O2 and O2/Ar also showed the
same trend with slightly lower contact angles, as shown in
Table 1. Our results were consistent with other previous
studies [46–50]. However, the single-step Ar plasma did not
show any significant change in the wetting property of PTFE
surface.
The root mean square surface roughness (Rrms) values derived
from AFM data of all the samples are presented in Table 1.
The O 2 based plasma samples (O 2 , Ar/O 2 , and O 2 /Ar)
produced relatively high Rrms values. The highest Rrms of 75.06 nm
was achieved in a single O2 plasma sample contributed to its
highest contact angle. However, the two-step O2/Ar plasma
sample had a slighly lower Rrms of 72.73 nm with an increasing
surface area of 48.91 μm2, which was the highest among all the
Table 1 AFM analysis of Rrms values, surface areas, and contact angles of
PTFE treated with various plasma conditions
Rrms Surface area Contact angle
Plasma treatment
(nm) (μm2) (°)
Pristine PTFE 29.85 25.78 96.5
Ar 35.21 32.84 96.7
O2 75.06 34.81 157.1
Ar/O2 72.69 36.80 143.2
O2/Ar 72.73 48.91 147.8
Figure 2 (a) Schematic diagram of working mechanism of the fabricated PTFE TENG device for mechanical energy harvesting. (b) Digital photograph
of the modified front surface and the conductive Ag film deposited on the back of PTFE. (c) Current signal generated during TENG operation.
www.theNanoResearch.com∣www.Springer.com/journal/12274 | Nano
3
treated samples. This indicated that the second step Ar plasma
created fine nanostructures resulting in the enhancement of
surface area, which could also slightly reduce Rrms in the two-
step O2/Ar plasma. The surface modification by the developed
O2/Ar plasma process for PTFE is presented in the schematic
diagram in Fig. 1(b).
The energy conversion performances of the TENGs fabricated
from the modified surface PTFE with all plasma etching con-
ditions were probed under a vertical contact-separation mode
using Al sheet as contact electrode and its working mechanism
is illustrated in Fig. 2(a). Ag conductive film deposited on the
back of PTFE sheet (Fig. 2(b)) was connected to Al contact
electrode via an external load. Under contact state (pressed), a
high electron affinity of PTFE produced negative triboelectric
charges on its surface, whereas an equal amount of positive
charges were formed on Al contact electrode. When the two
surfaces were separated (released), the potential difference
between them caused free electrons to transfer from Ag to Al
conductive electrode, generating a negative current signal, and
when they were brought into contact again, electrons flowed
back from Al to Ag electrode, producing a positive current
signal, as presented in Fig. 2(c).
The electrical outputs of PTFE based TENGs measured
under an applied mechanical force of 1 N with a frequency of
5 Hz are presented in Figs. 3(a) and 3(b), and their values are
listed in Table S1 in the ESM. It was found that TENG outputs
depended strongly on the surface area of PTFE. The O2/Ar
plasma TENG had a superior output performance in accordance
with its highest surface area. The highest peak to peak open-
circuit voltage and short-circuit current of 110.3 V and 8.8 μA,
respectively, were achieved from the O2/Ar plasma TENG,
which were three time larger than those of the unmodified PTFE
TENG. In Figs. 3(c) and 3(d), the maximum power density
delivered by the O2/Ar plasma TENG was 9.9 Wm−2 at a
matched load resistance of 1 MΩ, which was 27.5 times higher
than that of the pristine PTFE TENG, which was 0.36 Wm−2.
This power output was able to light up 160 LEDs connected in
series as demonstrated in Fig. 3(e) by human palm touching
(Movie ESM1).
Our fabricated TENG exhibited higher energy conversion
performance than some previously reported PTFE TENGs that
employed ICP plasma etching to modify surface morphologies.
Research
4 Nano Res.

 
Figure 3 The electrical output performance of TENG: (a) open-circuit voltage, (b) short-circuit current, (c) voltage and current density, and (d) power
density at different load resistances, and (e) the fabricated 10 cm × 10 cm PTFE TENG generated electrical output to light up 160 LEDs by palm touching.

The delivered power density of the PTFE TENG in this work Table 2 The compositions of PTFE surfaces modified by different plasma
was much higher than that of free-rotating disk PTFE TENG treatment conditions
which was 1.22 Wm−2 [23], and the ultrathin flexible single
Atomic percentage (%) Elemental ratio
electrode PTFE TENG which was 1.32 Wm−2 [26], and com- Plasma treatment
parable to that of the rotary PTFE TENG with the power density C F O F/C O/C
of 7.5 Wm−2 [22]. Pristine PTFE 32.66 66.50 0.84 2.04 0.03
Ar 43.61 40.73 15.66 0.93 0.36
3.2 Surface chemistry analysis
O2 38.00 55.30 6.70 1.46 0.18
The FESEM energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) Ar/O2 37.67 50.56 11.77 1.34 0.31
elemental analyses for the surface compositions of pristine
O2/Ar 40.88 46.34 12.78 1.13 0.31
and plasma-treated PTFE specimens are revealed in Table 2.
Pristine PTFE contained F and C atoms at the F/C ratio of 2
with a trace amount of oxygen, indicating that the PTFE used dissociate C–F bonds in PTFE surface [48], and leading to the
in this work was composed only (CF2–CF2)n polymer. The defluorination reaction that left behind abandon bonds of C
F/C ratios of all plasma-treated PTFE were nonstoichiometric on the surface [51–53].
(lower than 2), indicating that F atoms were removed from The surface elemental compositions by XPS analysis on C 1s,
–(CF2–CF2)– polymer chains. It was noticed that both the O 1s, and F 1s peaks of pristine PTFE and all the plasma-
single-step Ar and two-step O2/Ar plasma samples had treated PTFE samples are presented in Fig. 4. It was observed
much lower F contents than other plasma conditions. This that all plasma conditions changed surface chemistries of
was ascribed to the high impact force of massive Ar+ ions, PTFE specimens as evidenced by the distinct XPS spectra,
providing large momentum and energy transfer to effectively which were significantly different from the unmodified PTFE.

 
Figure 4 The XPS spectra of (a) C 1s, (b) F 1s, and (c) O 1s collected from pristine PTFE and the surface modified PTFE specimens with Ar, O2, Ar/O2,
and O2/Ar plasma etching.

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Nano Res.
Apart from –CF2, –CF and –CF3 were also detected in all plasma-
treated PTFE surfaces, as revealed in both C 1s and F 1s peaks
(Figs. 4(a) and 4(b)). The presences of –CF and –CF3 groups
indicated the bond rupture and chain scission of –CF2 groups,
which agreed well with the reduction of F atoms in EDX
results above.
In O2 plasma, many species can be generated in low- pressure
plasma discharge such as negative ions (O–, O2–, and O3–),
positive ions (O2+), neutral radicals (O and O3), and electrons
[54, 55]. Among these species, positive ions (O2+) received
a significant amount of energy from an asymmetric bipolar
pulsed power supply, which were accelerated toward the PTFE
surface. Short period and low positive pulses between longer
and high negative pulses greatly increased the energetic positive
O2+ ions species that cleaved C–C and C–F bonds, causing
the CF2 chain scission producing polymer radical segments as
expressed by the following reactions [56–61]:
–CF2–CF2– → –CF2–CF· + F·
–CF2–CF2– → –CF2· + ·CF2–
–CF2· + F· → –CF3
These broken bonds provided some reactive sites that could
interact with active oxygen species available in discharge
atmosphere. However, very few oxygen-containing functional
groups were probed in the O2 and Ar/O2 plasma samples (Figs. 4(a)
and 4(c)). This could be due to the formation of CO and CO2
gases caused by the high energy electrons during the etching
process, as described in ref [48].
In Ar plasma, the defluorination leaved C–C backbones
which could be the reactive sites for the formation of C–O
or C=O bonds due to the presence of residual oxygen in
atmosphere [51, 61, 62]. This accounted for the detection of
considerable amount of C–C, C–O, and C=O in the Ar and
O2/Ar plasma samples, as displayed in C 1s and O 1s in Figs. 4(a)
and 4(c), respectively. These oxygen-containing functional
groups in Ar based plasma samples led to the improved surface
wettability, resulting in the lower contact angle than that of the
O2 plasma one [50].
In summary, O2 plasma had high etching efficiency (high
surface roughness) and caused the CF2 chain scission to
produce polymer radical segments. Ar plasma was effective for
defluorination leaving behind the unsaturated C–C backbones
which could bond to residual oxygen or fluorine ions, introducing
many bond defects in polymer chains as described above. The
sequential plasma treatment with O2 plasma, as the first step,
created high surface roughness and introduced bond reactive
sites, the following Ar plasma, as a second step, helped further
enhancement of surface area and produced defective chemical
bonds that acted as charge trapping sites on the surface, which
consequently magnified electrification effect in PTFE surface.
The enhancement of triboelectric charges by the increased
surface area and charge trapping properties contributed to
the improved electrical output of the fabricated TENG. Under
a vertical contact separation mode with structure shown in
diagram in Fig. 5(a), the output voltage (V) can be given by
Eq. (1) [63].
Q æç d ö σx(t )
V =- + x ( t ) ÷÷÷ + (1)  dielectric constants did not change significantly in the plasma-
Sε0 ççè εr ø ε0
where Q is transfer charge, σ is triboelectric charge density,
d and εr are the thickness and relative dielectric constant of
PTFE, S is contact surface area, x is the distance between
the conductor and dielectric material, and εo is vacuum per-
mittivity. At open circuit condition, no charge is transferred,
which mean that Q = 0. Thus, the open-circuit voltage Voc is
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5
 
Figure 5 (a) Schematic diagram of the fabricated TENG with conductor-
to-dielectric mode. (b) The room temperature dielectric constants of
pristine and plasma treated PTFE specimens.
given by Eq. (2).
σx(t )
Voc = (2) 
ε0
This indicates that Voc mainly depends on σ, which is mainly
affected by intrinsic materials properties of the two triboelectric
layers upon electrification effect, contact surface area (and
roughness) [63], and charge capacitance of the device [64, 65].
Our TENG device in contact mode corresponds to capacitor
structure [64], where PTFE is dielectric material, Ag and Al
are current collectors or conductive electrodes. The maximum
capacitance (Cmax) of the device is a function of εr, S, and d, as
expressed by Eq. (3).
εr
Cmax = ε0S (3) 
d
According to the fact that the thickness changed by plasma
etching was very small (< 1μm) compared to bulk thickness of
PTFE (1 mm or 1,000 μm), d is thus assumed to be constant
for all the PTFE samples. This suggests that S and εr are key
parameters for enhancing triboelectric charges on the surface.
Dielectric response of materials arises from the induced
electric polarizations (i.e. electronic, atomic, dipolar, and interfacial
polarizations) by applying an electric field [66]. The presence
of the charge trapping sites contributes to the space charge
or interfacial polarization, which can be probed by dielectric
constant. The dielectric constants of all PTFE specimens were
measured using a capacitance structure with Ag and Au sputter-
deposited on the bottom and top surfaces as conductive electrodes,
respectively. The measured dielectric constants of pristine and
all plasma treated PTFE specimens as a function of frequency
are presented in Fig. 5(b).
It was found that the dielectric constants at 1 kHz of all the
plasma treated PTFE samples were higher than that of the
untreated PTFE. Generally, PTFE is non-polar polymer without
free charge, the orientation and interfacial polarizations are not
present. The detected dielectric constant is primary caused by
the polarization of atoms, comprising of PTFE. In this work,
plasma treatment on PTFE did not change the internal structure
of PTFE, only the surface structure was modified. The presence
of chemical bond defects with surface trapping charges produced
additional polarization due to defect dipole moments under
an applied electric field giving rise to the increased dielectric
constant of the plasma treated PTFE samples [66]. However, the
treated specimens, suggesting that the main contribution for
the output performance was from the increased surface area by
the plasma etching.
3.3 TENG applications
The applied mechanical force and frequency dependences of
electrical outputs of the O2/Ar plasma TENG are revealed in
Research
6 Nano Res.

Figs. 6(a) and 6(b). The output open-circuit voltage of two-

step plasma TENGs increased significantly with frequency
approaching 250 V at 9 Hz (Table S2 in the ESM), which was due
to the accumulated triboelectric charges at high frequencies.
However, mechanical force caused a slight change to the
electrical outputs, as shown in Table S3 in the ESM. This could
be attributed to the surface deformation constrain of PTFE
material in this range of applied force. This also contributed
to the high stability of output performance with the efficiency
retention of 92.6% over 5,000 cycles at relative humidity of 29%,
as shown in Fig. 6(c). The efficiency retention was found to
slightly change with environmental condition and it was above
90% when the relative humidity increased up to 50%, which is
acceptable for practical use in general environmental where the
relative humidity is in the range of 30%–50%. The efficiency
retentions of the TENG operated at the relative humidity of
20%–50% are presented in Fig. S6 in the ESM.
Moreover, the surface morphology of the modified-PTFE
surface was slightly changed after the stability test, as presented in  
the SEM images of the materials before and after performance Figure 7 (a) The fabricated 10 cm × 10 cm TENG with a spring assisted
testing in Fig. S5 in the ESM. structure to harvest human step energy. (b) Voltage output during stepping on
The generated electrical power of the fabricated PTFE TENG and off with peak to peak voltage of 800 V. (c) The energy output can light
was able to charge capacitors, which could be used as power up 320 LEDs connected in series. (d) The rectifier circuit and (e) charging
sources for electronic devices. The charging abilities of the profile of the capacitor to power a portable calculator.
TENG for 10, 22, 33, and 47 μF capacitors are presented in
voltage charging profiles in Fig. 6(d). In addition, the generated of TENG to power a portable calculator is demonstrated in
electrical signal upon finger touch on a single electrode Movie ESM5.
PTFE TENG was also demonstrated to operate a keyboard,
as displayed in Figs. 6(e) and 6 (f ), and Movies ESM2 and 4 Conclusions
ESM3.
To demonstrate the practical applications, a 10 cm × 10 cm A sequential O2/Ar plasma etching was firstly demonstrated as an
TENG was assembled from the O2/Ar plasma treated PTFE effective surface modification for enhancing the triboelectrification
and Al sheet under a spring-assisted structure to harvest human efficiency of PTFE TENG. Both O2 and Ar plasma treatments
step energy, as shown in Fig. 7(a). The electrical output with created nanostructures on the surface which consequently
peak to peak voltage of 800 V was generated by human steps improved surface roughness as well as enlarged surface area.
(Fig. 7(b)) which could instantaneously light up 320 LEDs Moreover, defective bonds on the course of the etching process
as presented in Fig. 7(c) and Movie ESM4. To power a served as charge trapping sites that intensified triboelectric
portable calculator, a 133 μF capacitor was charged by charge density. The highest power density of 9.9 Wm−2 was
electrical output of the TENG from the repeated human achieved from the O2/Ar plasma PTFE TENG, which was
step for 180 s using rectifier circuit (Fig. 7(d)), then the almost thirty times larger than that of the pristine PTFE
electrical energy was discharged to operate the calculator, TENG. The findings of this work have a crucial impact on the
as shown in the charging profile in Fig. 7(e). The operation fundamental aspects and development of a powerful and

 
Figure 6 The dependence of electrical output voltage PTFE TENG on (a) the operating frequencies, and (b) the applied forces. (c) The stability of output
voltage of the TENG over 5,000 cycles at 5 Hz. (d) Voltage charging profiles for various capacitors under operating frequency at 5 Hz. (e) The generated
electrical signal from finger touching and (f) the application as a keyboard sensor.

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Nano Res.
environmental friendly fabrication process to realize energy
harvesting applications of high performance TENG.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the RNN program of the
NANOTEC, NSTDA, Ministry of Higher Education, Science,
Research and Innovation (MHESI) and Khon Kaen University,
Thailand, the Thailand Research Fund (No. MRG6280196),
the Thailand Center of Excellence in Physics (ThEP), and the
Basic Research Fund of Khon Kaen University.
Electronic Supplementary Material: Supplementary material
(Table S1–S3 demonstrate the peak-peak voltage output of all
the plasma-treated, frequency and force conditions, Movies
ESM1–ESM3 show the performance of plasma-treated PTFE
TENG, the generated electrical signal by touching on the surface,
and the application of keyboard sensing, and Figs. S1–S5
illustrate the SEM micrographs of PTFE surfaces with various
plasma condition, and the modified PTFE surfaces before and
after testing for 5,000 cycles) is available in the online version
of this article at https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-021-3470-4.
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