Liquid Metal‐Carbon Fiber Thermocouple Array for Detection of Human Thermal Parameters

Abstract

AbstractContinuous and accurate measurement of human thermophysical properties has become a vital research field in non‐invasive physiological diagnosis. However, traditional electronic devices have been greatly restricted due to the disadvantages of large volume, heavy weight, and mechanical rigidity. In this work, a kind of fiber‐structured LMs thermocouples composed of LMs fibers and nickel‐coated carbon fibers to solve the dilemma of good thermoelectric performance and sufficient flexibility is synthesized. With high thermoelectric properties as well as flexibility and knittability, the fiber‐structured LMs thermocouples can be assembled into a thermocouple array for multipoint temperature measurement in living organisms. While the nickel‐coated carbon fiber as the electric heating component further endowed the heating function for the fiber‐structured LMs thermocouples array, thus a linear heat source‐pulse heating method is successfully developed for qualitative/quantitative thermophysical parameters measurement (including thermal conductivity, thermal diffusivity, and blood perfusion rate). Collectively, the fiber‐structured LMs thermocouple array has shown promising prospects in human physiological measurement and thermophysical properties measurement.