Sandpaper-molded wearable pressure sensor for electronic skins

Abstract

Wearable pressure sensors fabricated with sandpaper-molded carbon nanotube-polydimethylsiloxane (CNT-PDMS) electrodes are developed for electronic skins. Compared to the lithography method, widely adopted to prepare pressure sensors based on microstructures, the sandpaper molding method is much more cost-effective and scalable. The microhumps templated from the sandpaper are suggested to amplify the external stimuli during device deformation, leading to an improved sensitivity that is ∼20 times of the one without microstructures. Moreover, the detectable range of the sandpaper –molded device covers pressures from 5.0 Pa to 50.0 kPa, with a stimuli-response time around 0.19 s and a cycling stability more than 5000 cycles. The sandpaper-molded devices have been explored for external stimuli detection such as pressing, bending and twisting, and human health monitoring including phonation and pulsing.