A Flexible and Highly Sensitive Pressure Sensor Based on AgNWs/NRLF for Hand Motion Monitoring.

Yi Sun,Zhaoqun Du

doi:10.3390/nano9070945

Abstract

Flexible, highly sensitive, easy fabricating process, low-cost pressure sensors are the trend for flexible electronic devices. Inspired by the softness, comfortable, environmental friendliness and harmless of natural latex mattress, herein, we report an agile approach of constructing a flexible 3D-architectured conductive network by dip-coating silver nanowires (AgNWs) on the natural rubber latex foam (NRLF) substrate that provide the 3D micro-network structure as the skeleton. The variation of the contact transformed into the electrical signal among the conductive three-dimensional random networks during compressive deformation is the piezoresistive effect of AgNWs/NRLF pressure sensors. The resulting AgNWs/NRLF pressure sensors exhibit desirable electrical conductivity (0.45–0.50 S/m), excellent flexibility (58.57 kPa at 80% strain), good hydrophobicity (~128° at 5th dip-coated times) and outstanding repeatability. The AgNWs/NRLF sensors can be assembled on a glove to detect hand motion sensitively such as bending, touching and holding, show potential application such as artificial skin, human prostheses and health monitoring in multifunctional pressure sensors.

Highlights

Flexible sensors [1,2] are electronic systems that use sensor technology combined with new material technology to mimic protection, perception and regulation of human skin [3,4,5,6,7]
The combination of silver nanowires and Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) is more common in sensor manufacturing, PDMS substrate coated with architectured conductive network by dip-coating silver nanowires (AgNWs) was used as the top electrode, and polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF), have the excellent performance with the dielectric layer of high sensitivity and low detection limit [37]
A hand glove integrated with AgNWs/natural rubber latex foam (NRLF) sensors on each five fingers is developed for the detection of hand motion

Summary

Introduction

Flexible sensors [1,2] are electronic systems that use sensor technology combined with new material technology to mimic protection, perception and regulation of human skin [3,4,5,6,7]. We used the dip-coating method to achieve the natural and random distribution of silver nanowires without destroying the length of AgNWs. Sensitivity and compressibility should be considered when manufacturing the excellent performance sensors, that the response of the sensor to the external stimulation like compression is primarily dependent on changes in electrical characteristics such as resistance. The combination of silver nanowires and Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) is more common in sensor manufacturing, PDMS substrate coated with AgNWs was used as the top electrode, and polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF), have the excellent performance with the dielectric layer of high sensitivity and low detection limit [37]. Piezoresistive sensors were developed based on the commercial elastic foams and traditional porous structures such as polyurethane (PU) sponges with high flexibility and elasticity [40], to build conductive networks such as AgNWs on their skeletons. A hand glove integrated with AgNWs/NRLF sensors on each five fingers is developed for the detection of hand motion

Materials

Findings

Conclusions