The quest for out-of-plane and self-powered wind sensors
has motivated
the field of outdoor sports, exploration, space perception, and positioning.
Fine hairs of spiders act as hundreds of individual wind sensors,
allowing them to feel the nearby wind change caused by the predators
or the prey. Inspired by this natural teacher, here, we demonstrate
the fabrication of bioinspired self-powered out-of-plane wind sensors
based on flexible magnetoelectric material systems. The shape of flexible
sensors, by patterning silver nanoparticles on a thin polyethylene
terephthalate film through a screen printing technique, mimics fine
hairs of the spiders, allowing for out-of-plane tactile perceptual
monitoring caused by the wind. Owing to the employment of flexible
magnetoelectric materials, the sensors can distinguish forward/backward
winds and are totally self-powered. The working mechanism for sensors
has been explained by the Maxwell numerical simulation, allowing for
further improvement of their performance by tuning diverse factors.
Furthermore, the wind sensor can detect the wind with a velocity down
to 1.2 m/s and distinguish multidegree wind by their arrays. It is
expected that, in the near future, our design can provide new findings
for out-of-plane wind sensors with superior self-powered properties
toward new flexible electronics.
This study will demonstrate the fabrication of binary cooperative flexible magnetoelectric materials and their application in self-powered tactile sensors.
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