Abstract
Printing technologies have been attracting increasing interest in the manufacture of electronic devices and sensors. They offer a unique set of advantages such as additive material deposition and low to no material waste, digitally-controlled design and printing, elimination of multiple steps for device manufacturing, wide material compatibility and large scale production to name but a few. Some of the most popular and interesting sensors are relative humidity, temperature and strain sensors. In that regard, this review analyzes the utilization and involvement of printing technologies for full or partial sensor manufacturing; production methods, material selection, sensing mechanisms and performance comparison are presented for each category, while grouping of sensor sub-categories is performed in all applicable cases. A key aim of this review is to provide a reference for sensor designers regarding all the aforementioned parameters, by highlighting strengths and weaknesses for different approaches in printed humidity, temperature and strain sensor manufacturing with printing technologies.
Highlights
Some of the most interesting physical sensors which find a wide range of applications are relative humidity [1], temperature [2] and strain [3] sensors; they can be used in indoor or outdoor applications, in on-body measurements and other biomedical settings, in environmental, agricultural, room monitoring and so on
Printed electronics are a type of electronic devices, manufactured by a usually additive printing process, i.e., direct material deposition onto a substrate in a patterned manner, or more formally an electronic science and technology based on conventional printing techniques as the means to manufacture electronic devices and systems [4]
It is obvious that there exists an increasing trend in all three fields, with temperature and strain sensors sharing approximately equal number of citations, but with strain sensors having approximately half the publications (Figure 3). This indicates amongst others, (a) the heavy scientific importance of development of such sensors and the overall high research interest that these devices pose and (b) a set of applications that correlates these devices, but with printed temperature sensors reaching a more mature state
Summary
Some of the most interesting physical sensors which find a wide range of applications are relative humidity [1], temperature [2] and strain [3] sensors; they can be used in indoor or outdoor applications, in on-body measurements and other biomedical settings, in environmental, agricultural, room monitoring and so on. For developing these sensors to meet modern application demands, requirements for mass scale, cost-effective approaches with smart material combinations arise. No etching is required, providing two more advantages: (a) no active material loss and (b) little to no byproducts and resulting chemical waste
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