Fundamentals and applications of ion migration induced polymer sensor detecting bending, pressure and shear force

Abstract

Electric potential induced by ion migration exists widely in organisms such as tactile corpuscles and auditory hair cells. Mechanosensitive ion channels open under the influence of stretch, pressure, shear, and displacement. As shown in Fig. 1, cell membrane potential is generated by ion transport through the phospholipid bilayer, which is the basis for our tactile and auditory sensing [1], [2]. Similar to these cells, ion-migration induced electricity can be realized by ionic electro-active polymers (iEAP), which include ionic gel, ionic polymer-metal composites (IPMC), bucky gel actuator and conducting polymers, etc. Because of their advantages of light weight, low modulus of elasticity (20-300 MPa) and low mechanical / acoustic impedance (2 Mkg/(m <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> s)), they can be used as flexible sensors and have wide potential application in biomimetic sensors such as artificial skin, artificial lateral lines and artificial ears.