Skin sensors are of paramount importance for flexible wearable electronics, which are active in medical diagnosis and healthcare monitoring. Ultrahigh sensitivity, large measuring range, and high skin conformability are highly desirable for skin sensors. Here, an ultrathin flexible piezoresistive sensor with high sensitivity and wide detection range is reported based on hierarchical nanonetwork structured pressuresensitive material and nanonetwork electrodes. The hierarchical nanonetwork material is composed of silver nanowires (Ag NWs), graphene (GR), and polyamide nanofibers (PANFs). Among them, Ag NWs are evenly interspersed in a PANFs network, forming conductive pathways. Also, GR acts as bridges of crossed Ag NWs. The hierarchical nanonetwork structure and GR bridges of the pressure-sensitive material enable the ultrahigh sensitivity for the pressure sensor. More specifically, the sensitivity of 134 kPa −1 (0−1.5 kPa) and the low detection of 3.7 Pa are achieved for the pressure sensor. Besides, the nanofibers act as a backbone, which provides effective protection for Ag NWs and GR as pressure is applied. Hence, the pressure sensor possesses an excellent durability (>8000 cycles) and wide detection range (>75 kPa). Additionally, ultrathin property (7 μm) and nanonetwork structure provide high skin conformability for the pressure sensor. These superior performances lay a foundation for the application of pressure sensors in physiological signal monitoring and pressure spatial distribution detection.
Flexible pressure sensors have attracted intense attention because of their widespread applications in electronic skin, human−machine interfaces, and healthcare monitoring. Conductive porous structures are always utilized as active layers to improve the sensor sensitivities. However, flexible pressure sensors derived from traditional foaming techniques have limited structure designability. Besides, random pore distribution causes difference in structure and signal repeatability between different samples even in one batch, therefore limiting the batch production capabilities. Herein, we introduce a structure designable lattice structure pressure sensor (LPS) produced by bottom-up digital light processing (DLP) 3D printing technique, which is capable of efficiently producing 55 high fidelity lattice structure models in 30 min. The LPS shows high sensitivity (1.02 kPa −1 ) with superior linearity over a wide pressure range (0.7 Pa to 160 kPa). By adjusting the design parameters such as lattice type and layer thickness, the electrical sensitivities and mechanical properties of LPS can be accurately controlled. In addition, the LPS endures up to 60000 compression cycles (at 10 kPa) without any obvious electrical signal degradation. This benefits from the firm carbon nanotubes (CNTs) coating derived from high-energy ultrasonic probe and the subsequent thermal curing process of UV-heat dual-curing photocurable resin. For practical applications, the LPS is used for real time pulse monitoring, voice recognition and Morse code communication. Furthermore, the LPS is also integrated to make a flexible 4 × 4 sensor arrays for detecting spatial pressure distribution and a flexible insole for foot pressure monitoring.
Stretchable electrodes have a crucial impact on the development flexible electronic systems. Most conventional blended nanocomposite electrodes are incapable in achieving high stretchability, breathability and durability. In this work, a...
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