Stretchable and Self-Healing Sensors

Abstract

Sensors are used for perceiving, monitoring, and interpreting the variables around us. New efforts to improve the comfort, safety, and life quality of people have led to increasing demand for wearable functional sensors that require the design and development of new polymeric materials with unique and tunable properties. When evaluated from this perspective, damage formation under harsh conditions and/or material aging/deformation/scratching/abrasion during application have become the most important problems for electronic polymers to be solved. One of the first solutions is the usage of polymers with high stretching and inherent self-healing ability for sensors. Stretchable and self-healing polymers provide many advantages, not only in mechanical, electrical, and sensing performance but also in service life, maintenance, cost, and sustainability of the products. In this chapter, the requirements for stretchable self-healing sensors are summarized based on their mechanical, sensing, self-healing, and other properties. Further, self-healing sensors are classified based on their sensing mechanism such as piezoresistive, capacitive, and piezoelectric. Each mechanism is highlighted with current and promising applications in terms of their self-healing and sensing performance by considering advantages, limitations, and challenges. Finally, a basic approach is given for the design of stretchable, self-healing sensors from material selection to sustainability, and recommendations are provided for future commercialization.