Wearable Triboelectric/Aluminum Nitride Nano-Energy-Nano-System with Self-Sustainable Photonic Modulation and Continuous Force Sensing

Wearable photonics offer a promising platform to complement the thriving complex wearable electronics system by providing high-speed data transmission channels and robust optical sensing paths. Regarding the realization of photonic computation and tunable (de)multiplexing functions based on system-level integration of abundant photonic modulators, it is challenging to reduce the overwhelming power consumption in traditional current-based silicon photonic modulators. This issue is addressed by integrating voltage-based aluminum nitride (AlN) modulator and textile triboelectric nanogenerator (T-TENG) on a wearable platform to form a nano-energy-nano-system (NENS). The T-TENG transduces the mechanical stimulations into electrical signals based on the coupling of triboelectrification and electrostatic induction. The self-generated high-voltage from the T-TENG is applied to the AlN modulator and boosts its modulation efficiency regardless of AlN's moderate Pockels effect. Complementarily, the AlN modulator's capacitive nature enables the open-circuit operation mode of T-TENG, providing the integrated NENS with continuous force sensing capability which is notably uninfluenced by operation speeds. Furthermore, a physical model is proposed to describe the coupled AlN modulator/T-TENG system. With the enhanced photonic modulation and the open-circuit operation mode enabled by synergies between the AlN modulator and the T-TENG, optical Morse code transmission and continuous human motion monitoring are demonstrated for practical wearable applications.