A stretching-insensitive, self-powered and wearable pressure sensor

Abstract

The advances in wearable electronics require the sensor to be stretchable and flexible. However, the sensing properties of sensor vary significantly under lateral stretching strains, which results in inaccurate measurement. Here, a lateral stretching-insensitive and self-powered pressure sensor (SSPS) based on the triboelectric nanogenerator is fabricated through the regular porous networks design of Ag nanowires (Ag NWs) electrode. A stretchable Ag NWs electrode with regular porous networks can keep constant resistance within the range of 0–85% lateral stretching strain. The fabricated SSPS has nearly identical electrical response to the same normal pressure and its sensing properties maintain invariant in the lateral stretching strain range from 0% to 60%. This stretching-insensitive property is mainly derived from constant internal impedance of pressure sensor. Moreover, SSPS with the sensitivity of 0.1 nA/KPa can act as wearable monitors and electronic skin to perform the health assessment and has potential applications in prosthetics and intelligent robotics.