Conductive graphene/polydimethylsiloxane nanocomposites for flexible strain sensors

Abstract

Flexibility electrode with high stretchability, electrical conductivity, and good mechanical properties are desirable, owing to their promising applications in electronic circuit and human motion monitoring systems. In order to prepare a conductive composite material, the graphene (GE) was used as a conductive filler and polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) as a polymeric matrix. Graphene has high electrical conductivity, which can be hybrided to PDMS to form graphene/polydimethylsiloxane (GE/PDMS) conductive film using a simple spin-coating method. The electrical resistivity of the GE/PDMS film was further decreased to 9.4 Ω cm at a graphene loading of 25 wt%. The GE/PDMS films show excellent stability and were used as a sandwich structured PDMS-GE/PDMS–PDMS flexible strain sensor. The graphene strain sensor has been studied with small size and high sensitivity. Choosing a weak human motion (fingers bending) to test significant resistance changes and the small-scale sensitivity.