Nanowire Based Flexible Piezoelectric Sensor for Structural Health Monitoring Applications

A. El Kacimi [1], E. Pauliac-Vaujour [1], J. Eymery [2]
[1] University Grenoble Alpes, CEA, LETI, MINATEC Campus, Grenoble, France
[2] University Grenoble Alpes, CEA, Grenoble, France
Published in 2015

We report on the modeling of flexible piezoelectric capacitive sensor based on GaN wires grown by Metal Organic Vapor Phase Epitaxy. Single crystal cone-shaped wires with hexagonal cross section are embedded within dielectric layers (parylene) in between two metal electrodes to achieve a capacitive structure. The device characteristics directly depend on growth conditions for example by tuning the wires length and the conicity angle. This work quantifies by finite element calculation the impact of these two parameters on the voltage generation for a single wire incorporated into a thin dielectric layer.