Fabrication of the piezoresistive sensor using the continuous laser-induced nanostructure growth for structural health monitoring

The laser-induced synthesis of nanostructures provides an innovative and unique way to shorten the overall processing time in comparison to traditional methods, while allowing precise control of the growth. This is the novel research to report continuous laser beam-assisted uniform growth of aligned nanowires, nanorods and nanotubes on woven carbon fibers (WCF) within a short period of time. The morphologies of the nanostructures were finely controlled by tuning the laser power, beam speed and exposure time. We compared the nanowire/nanorod growth patterns to those obtained with pulsed laser processed growth. The nanostructured-WCF was then used as an electrode and a woven Kevlar fiber (WKF) sheet as a separator for the fabrication of supercapacitor-type sensors. The supercapacitor displays excellent electrochemical and mechanical performance with outstanding multifunctionality. The self-energized supercapacitor exhibits high sensitivity with good cyclic stability. The device functions very well, with few errors, under various environmental conditions. We believe that our supercapacitor-type sensor will be extremely beneficial for the detection of structural problems in bridges, buildings, aerospace vehicles and automobiles, and facilitate the precise motion control of different types of instruments.