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Fingertip‐Skin‐Inspired Highly Sensitive and Multifunctional Sensor with Hierarchically Structured Conductive Graphite/Polydimethylsiloxane Foams
Author(s) -
Sun QiJun,
Zhao XinHua,
Zhou Ye,
Yeung ChiChung,
Wu Wei,
Venkatesh Shishir,
Xu ZongXiang,
Wylie Jonathan J.,
Li WenJung,
Roy Vellaisamy A. L.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
advanced functional materials
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.069
H-Index - 322
eISSN - 1616-3028
pISSN - 1616-301X
DOI - 10.1002/adfm.201808829
Subject(s) - materials science , electronic skin , polydimethylsiloxane , pressure sensor , sensitivity (control systems) , optoelectronics , nanotechnology , biomedical engineering , electronic engineering , mechanical engineering , medicine , engineering
Fingertip skin exhibits high sensitivity in a broad pressure range, and can detect diverse stimuli, including textures, temperature, humidity, etc. Despite adopting diverse microstructures and functional materials, achieving skin sensor devices possessing high pressure sensitivity over a wide linear range and with multifunctional sensing capabilities is still challenging. Herein, inspired by the microstructures of fingertip skin, a highly sensitive skin sensor is demonstrated with a linear response over a broad pressure range and multifunctional sensing capabilities. The porous sensing layer is designed with hierarchical microstructures on the surface. By optimizing the porosity and the graphite concentration, a fabricated skin sensor device exhibits a superior sensitivity of 245 kPa −1 over a broad linear pressure range from 5 Pa to 120 kPa. For practical application demonstrations, the sensor devices are utilized to monitor subtle wrist pulse and diverse human motions including finger bending, wrist bending, and feet movement. Furthermore, this novel sensor device demonstrates potential applications in recognizing textures and detecting environmental temperatures, thereby marking an important progress for constructing advanced electronic skin.