A piezoelectric fiber constituted of ZnO cylindrical coating on a stainless steel wire has been achieved by High Power Impulse Magnetron Sputtering (HiPIMS) by using a prototype designed and assembled during this PhD work. The piezoelectric fiber can be used as a strain probe or as a vibration harvesting generator for embedded electronics. The analyses of deposited layer allow to understand ZnO growth mechanism in order to optimize to deposition process. A special emphasis has been placed on the selection of preferential orientation during the growth. The low volume of steel wire, allow to control his temperature by adjusting some process parameters, like the pressure and the average power. Temperature sensitive wires (e.g. polymer) can be treated in the mildest conditions. Preferential nucleation followed by self-epitaxy have been proposed to explain the very strong preferential orientation identified in coatings deposited at low temperature. At high peak current, preferential nucleation and evolutionary growth can promote the (101)* orientation. At highest peak currents no preferential orientation was identified and the high residual stress has been attributed to the excess of oxygen in the coating.
