Abstract
One-dimensional and two-dimensional materials are widely used to compose the conductive network atop soft substrate to form flexible strain sensors for several wearable electronic applications. However, limited contact area and layer misplacement hinder the rapid development of flexible strain sensors based on 1D or 2D materials. To overcome these drawbacks above, we proposed a hybrid strategy by combining 1D carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and 2D graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs), and the developed strain sensor based on CNT-GNP hierarchical networks showed remarkable sensitivity and tenability. The strain sensor can be stretched in excess of 50% of its original length, showing high sensitivity (gauge factor 197 at 10% strain) and tenability (recoverable after 50% strain) due to the enhanced resistive behavior upon stretching. Moreover, the GNP-CNT hybrid thin film shows highly reproducible response for more than 1000 loading cycles, exhibiting long-term durability, which could be attributed to the GNPs conductive networks significantly strengthened by the hybridization with CNTs. Human activities such as finger bending and throat swallowing were monitored by the GNP-CNT thin film strain sensor, indicating that the stretchable sensor could lead to promising applications in wearable devices for human motion monitoring.
Highlights
Flexible electronics has become a hot area of research attracting extensive attention in recent y ears[1,2,3,4]
Strain sensors based on sole graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) and sole carbon nanotubes (CNTs) thin films were prepared by similar method
The GNP-CNT mixed solution was first deposited onto a PDMS substrate at an elevated temperature to facilitate solution evaporation
Summary
Flexible electronics has become a hot area of research attracting extensive attention in recent y ears[1,2,3,4]. Traditional strain sensors based on metal foils or semiconductor films possess unsatisfying flexibility and poor stretchability (ε < 5%) due to the brittleness of sensing materials[11,12,13]. These sensors are not suitable for occasions where both high sensitivity and large stretchable range are required. The application of GNP-CNT hybrid thin film strain sensor as a wearable device was demonstrated by mounting it on human finger and front neck to monitor body-motion. It is revealed that CNTs hybridization greatly improves the sensitivity of GNPs and the proposed strain sensor has a promising perspective in applications of human body monitoring
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