Highly stable flexible thermistor properties of spinel Mn-Co-Ni oxide films on silver/carbon micro-pinecone array composite electrodes

Abstract

We fabricated flexible Mn1.56Co0.96Ni0.48O4 (MCN) thermistors with stable electrical properties by precisely optimizing precursors and electrodes. The composite Ag and carbon micro-pinecone (CMP) arrays were fabricated with a KrF laser directly from polyimide sheets containing silica nanoparticles and functioned well as electrodes with high bending resistance. The electrical resistance was stable even after 10 000 bending test cycles. The well-crystallized MCN film thermistors were fabricated on the Ag/CMP composite electrodes by KrF laser irradiation at 55 mJ·cm−2 for 600 pulses to optimize the precursor films consisting of MCN nanoparticles and amorphous Mn-Co-Ni oxides. The MCN film thermistors showed high thermistor constants at 3633 K, low electrical resistivity at 10.7 kΩ·cm at 37 °C, and remarkably good stability during 10 000 bending cycles (the change in resistance was only 0.6%). The MCN film thermistors also had excellent temperature cycle resistance at 20–150 °C (3000 cycles). Thus, we improved the reliability of flexible thermistors for application in various kinds of wearable devices.