Stretchable conductive hydrogels integrated with microelectronic devices for strain sensing

Abstract

Conductive hydrogels have great potential for application in the field of flexible wearable devices due to their excellent stretchability and biocompatibility. In this work, double-network hydrogels were prepared by ion crosslinking and chemical crosslinking, and the resulting hydrogel sensors exhibited excellent performance in terms of stretchability and sensitivity. Specifically, the elongation at break reached 900%, with a fast response time (157 ms), high conductivity (1.47 S m⁻¹), high sensitivity (gauge factor = 5.42, strain of 900%), and high fatigue resistance (1800 cycles of testing). Based on these excellent properties, the hydrogels were assembled into strain sensors, successfully detecting signal changes in human motion states, and recognizing different gestures. Therefore, the prepared hydrogels can be used as soft sensors for motion monitoring, electronic skin, and other fields.