Please consider attending the following: MATERIALS ENGINEERING SEMINAR "PZT based "Z" Aligned Piezoelectric Polymer Materials for Pressure Sensor and Energy Harvesting Applications" By Armen Yildirim Purdue MSE Ph.D. Preliminary Exam Advisor: Professor Mukerrem Cakmak ABSTRACT Recently, the potential impacts of wearable technologies have become more evident with the introduction of the "Internet of Things" (IoT), which can basically be described as a smart network where every electronic device is connected to each other through embedded sensors and the internet. As a result, there is an increasing demand for the use of flexible, ultra-lightweight and transparent sensors and nanogenerators for self-powered electronics in several areas such as personal health monitoring, soft robotics, human inspired electronic skin (e-skin), energy harvesting and biomedical applications. In this work, we report a novel approach to produce high performance, flexible and transparent PZT/Graphene based ultra-sensitive pressure sensors and nanogenerators where particles are aligned under an AC electric field in the thickness ("Z") direction. With the E-field alignment method, the amount of particles required to develop a piezoelectric polymer material is greatly reduced. As a result, the transparency is maintained for desired applications such as touch screen interfaces. On the other hand, this method will also be the first of its kind for flexible nanogenerators and pressure sensors that is fully compatible with a continuous large-scale roll-to-roll (R2R) production line which is also designed and developed by our group. Date: Tuesday, November 14, 2017 Time: 12:30 P.M. Place: BRK 2001