Dr. Zhong Lin Wang, a Regents’ Professor at Georgia Tech, has demonstrated an innovative approach for converting nano-scale mechanical energy into electric energy by piezoelectric zinc oxide nanowire (NW) arrays [1] (Fig. 1). By deflecting the aligned NWs using a conductive atomic force microscopy (AFM) tip in contact mode, the energy that was first created by the deflection force and later converted into electricity by piezoelectric effect has been measured for demonstrating nano-scale power generator. The operation mechanism of the electric generator relies on the unique coupling of piezoelectric and semiconducting dual properties of ZnO as well as the elegant rectifying function of the Schottky barrier formed between the metal tip and the NW. The efficiency of the NW based piezo-electric power generator is ~ 17-30%.