A paper-based piezoelectric accelerometer

Yu Hsuan Wang, Pengfei Song, Xiao Li, Changhai Ru, Giovanni Ferrari, Prabakaran Balasubramanian, Marco Amabili, Yu Sun, Xinyu Liu*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

58 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This paper presents the design and testing of a one-axis piezoelectric accelerometer made from cellulose paper and piezoelectric zinc oxide nanowires (ZnO NWs) hydrothermally grown on paper. The accelerometer adopts a cantilever-based configuration with two parallel cantilever beams attached with a paper proof mass. A piece of U-shaped, ZnO-NW-coated paper is attached on top of the parallel beams, serving as the strain sensing element for acceleration measurement. The electric charges produced from the ZnO-NW-coated paper are converted into a voltage output using a custom-made charge amplifier circuit. The device fabrication only involves cutting of paper and hydrothermal growth of ZnO NWs, and does not require the access to expensive and sophisticated equipment. The performance of the devices with different weight growth percentages of the ZnO NWs was characterized.

Original languageEnglish
Article number19
JournalMicromachines
Volume9
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2 Jan 2018
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Hydrothermal growth
  • Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS)
  • Paper-based sensors
  • Piezoelectric accelerometer
  • Zinc oxide nanowires

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