Flexible inorganic piezoelectric acoustic nanosensors for biomimetic artificial hair cells

For patients who suffer from sensorineural hearing loss by damaged or loss of hair cells in the cochlea, biomimetic artificial cochleas to remedy the disadvantages of existing implant systems have been intensively studied. Here, a new concept of an inorganic-based piezoelectric acoustic nanosensor (iPANS) for the purpose of a biomimetic artificial hair cell to mimic the functions of the original human hair cells is introduced. A trapezoidal silicone-based membrane (SM) mimics the function of the natural basilar membrane for frequency selectivity, and a flexible iPANS is fabricated on the SM utilizing a laser lift-off technology to overcome the brittle characteristics of inorganic piezoelectric materials. The vibration amplitude vs piezoelectric sensing signals are theoretically examined based on the experimental conditions by finite element analysis. The SM is successful at separating the audible frequency range of incoming sound, vibrating distinctively according to varying locations of different sound frequencies, thus allowing iPANS to convert tiny vibration displacement of ≈15 nm into an electrical sensing output of ≈55 μV, which is close to the simulation results presented. This conceptual iPANS of flexible inorganic piezoelectric materials sheds light on the new fields of nature-inspired biomimetic systems using inherently high piezoelectric charge constants.