A novel artificial hair receptor based on aligned PVDF micro/nano fibers

This paper describes the production of an artificial hair cell receptor based on aligned micro/nano polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) fibers. Suspended aligned micro/nano fiber arrays were successfully produced on an insulator film by a novel method called thermo-direct drawing procedure. Using this method, aligned micro/nano-size PVDF fibers are obtained. Some key problems such as the fabrication of the electrodes on a single fiber along fiber drawing direction and poling of micro/nano fibers to endow them with good piezoeffective activity have been presented. Comparative experiments show that the artificial hair cell receptor has reliable response with good sensibility under pressure stimulation if a standard pressure sensor is taken as a reference. The preliminary validation experiments show the novel artificial receptor is a promising technique in the detection of the flow medium speed and vibration.