Piezotronic effect on ZnO nanowire film based temperature sensor.

In this work, we demonstrated the first study of piezotronic effect as a potential means for measuring temperature by utilizing ZnO nanowire (NW) film. The film was synthesized by the wet chemical deposition method and transferred to a flexible substrate using photoresist. The primary role of piezotronic effect over geometrical and piezoresistive effect in the as-fabricated devices has been confirmed, and piezotronic effect on charge carrier transportation under different strains is subsequently studied. In addition, we also presented that the temperature sensing capability of as-fabricated NW film based piezotronic devices can be tuned by piezopotential, which exhibits dramatically enhanced sensitivity. A theoretical model is proposed to interpret the observed behaviors of the sensor. This study provides an effective method to fabricate temperature sensors with higher performance based on piezotronic effect in the future.