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Abstract
The development and popularity of wearable electronics increase demand for wearable energy harvesters that can scavenge energy from environment or human body movements. In this thesis, techniques to fabricate nanoyarn based PVDF (polyvinylidene fluoride) wearable piezoelectric nanogenerator (PNG) were presented. In the first technique, a modified electrospinning device was used to fabricate a core sheath yarn by wrapping electrospun PVDF nanofibers around a silver deposited nylon filament acting as an inner electrode. The influence of interfacial properties between PVDF layer with inner electrode was stressed. Touch spinning is a newly developed method to make nanofibers through mechanical stretching of polymer solution. In the second technique, a modified touch spinning device for core-sheath yarn was developed. We studied the influence of processing parameters on the structure of PVDF nanofibrous layer. Flexible yarn-based PNG devices prepared by touchspinning and electrospinning in this thesis exhibited good energy output and demonstrated great promise to be used as a wearable energy harvester.