piezoelectric properties, which means that if you bend them, they produce an electric current.
"This technology could eventually lead to wearable 'smart clothes' that can power hand-held electronics through ordinary body movements," said Liwei Lin, UC Berkeley professor of mechanical engineering, in a press release. Lin is the head of the international research team that developed the fiber nanogenerators.
Let's be clear, though: Your personal body movement, even when running at full speed, don't create enough energy to power a typical computer chip. The nanogenerators would need a new kind of nanochip that could run off the super-low current generated by your movements. Hewlett-Packard researchers believe they have the technology to take CPU size below that possible through current laser-etching techniques. But a circuit board that could be powered by walking around would need to be even smaller.