Issue 29, 2019

Stretchable and self-healable electrical sensors with fingertip-like perception capability for surface texture discerning and biosignal monitoring

Abstract

Soft electronic skins (e-skins) with superior sensing performance have attracted significant attention in numerous applications. However, most of the reported e-skins have been prepared based on an inert polymer substrate without completely considering its self-healing ability; this severely limits the practical application of these e-skins. In addition, the fabrication of most of the e-skins is conducted via photolithography and other tedious processes; therefore, it is difficult to equilibrate high sensing performance and preparation simplification. Herein, a simple and general fabrication strategy of self-healable and highly sensitive electrical sensor, consisting of a sensing component, i.e. Au-deposited toothbrush-hair micro-prick arrays, and a substrate component, i.e. a P-TDI-IP elastomer obtained via the block polymerization of polytetramethylene glycol (P), 2,4′-tolylene diisocyanate (TDI), and isophorone diisocyanate (IP), is reported. The self-healable P-TDI-IP elastomer acting as a substrate endows the reported electrical sensor with an excellent self-healing capability (96% with 6 h) and an outstanding stretchability (1200%). Importantly, due to the presence of unique micro-prick arrays, the electrical sensor could detect multiaxial tactile stimuli including pressing and shearing. Moreover, this device exhibited high sensitivities (3.32 kPa−1 for pressing, GF = 2.82 for shearing), the rapid response time of 25 ms, and the low detection limit of 5 Pa. Owing to these prominent properties, the electrical sensor presented anticipated abilities for distinguishing ultrafine surfaces with different roughnesses and monitoring various human motions.

Graphical abstract: Stretchable and self-healable electrical sensors with fingertip-like perception capability for surface texture discerning and biosignal monitoring

Associated articles

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
15 May 2019
Accepted
24 Jun 2019
First published
24 Jun 2019

J. Mater. Chem. C, 2019,7, 9008-9017

Stretchable and self-healable electrical sensors with fingertip-like perception capability for surface texture discerning and biosignal monitoring

X. Wu, Z. Li, H. Wang, J. Huang, J. Wang and S. Yang, J. Mater. Chem. C, 2019, 7, 9008 DOI: 10.1039/C9TC02575H

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