Flexible electrospun PVDF–BaTiO3 hybrid structure pressure sensor with enhanced efficiency

Abstract

Ceramic doped-polymer structures as organic and inorganic hybrid structures constitute a new area of advanced materials for flexible and stretchable sensors and actuators. Here, uniform ceramic-polymer composites of tetragonal BaTiO₃ and polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) were prepared using solution casting to improve the pressure sensitivity. By introducing Ba–TiO₃ nanoparticles to PVDF nanofibers, piezoelectricity and pressure sensitivity of hybrid nanofiber mats were significantly improved. In addition, we proposed a novel flexible and stretchable multilayered pressure sensor composed of electrospun nanocomposite fibers with high electrical sensitivity up to 6 mV N⁻¹ compared to 1.88 mV N⁻¹ for the pure PVDF sensors upon the application of cyclic loads at 2.5 Hz frequency and a constant load of 0.5 N. Indeed, this work provides a composition-dependent approach for the fabrication of nanostructures for pressure sensors in a wide variety of wearable devices and technologies.