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A low-cost, printable, and stretchable strain sensor based on highly conductive elastic composites with tunable sensitivity for human motion monitoring

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Abstract

Strain sensors with high stretchability, broad strain range, high sensitivity, and good reliability are desirable, owing to their promising applications in electronic skins and human motion monitoring systems. In this paper, we report a high-performance strain sensor based on printable and stretchable electrically conductive elastic composites. This strain sensor is fabricated by mixing silver-coated polystyrene spheres (PS@Ag) and liquid polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and screen-printed to a desirable geometry. The strain sensor exhibits fascinating comprehensive performances, including high electrical conductivity (1.65 × 104 S/m), large workable strain range (> 80%), high sensitivity (gauge factor of 17.5 in strain of 0%–10%, 6.0 in strain of 10%–60% and 78.6 in strain of 60%–80%), inconspicuous resistance overshoot (< 15%), good reproducibility and excellent long-term stability (1,750 h at 85 °C/85% relative humidity) for PS@Ag/PDMS-60, which only contains ∼ 36.7 wt.% of silver. Simultaneously, this strain sensor provides the advantages of low-cost, simple, and large-area scalable fabrication, as well as robust mechanical properties and versatility in applications. Based on these performance characteristics, its applications in flexible printed electrodes and monitoring vigorous human motions are demonstrated, revealing its tremendous potential for applications in flexible and wearable electronics.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key R&D Project from Minister of Science and Technology of China (No. 2016YFA0202702), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 61701488 and 21571186), Leading Scientific Research Project of Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. QYZDY-SSW-JSC010), Youth Innovation Promotion Association (No. 2017411), Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory (No. 2014B030301014), Guangdong TeZhi Plan Youth Talent of Science and Technology (No. 2014TQ01C102), Shenzhen Basic Research plan (Nos. JSGG20150512145714246 and JSGG20160229155249762) and SIAT Innovation Program for Excellent Young Researchers (No. 2016005).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Materials for High Density Electronic Packaging, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, 518055, China

    Yougen Hu, Tao Zhao, Pengli Zhu, Yuan Zhang, Xianwen Liang & Rong Sun

  2. Nano Science and Technology Institute, University of Science and Technology of China, Suzhou, 215123, China

    Yuan Zhang

  3. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, 30332, USA

    Ching-Ping Wong

  4. Department of Electronic Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 999077, China

    Ching-Ping Wong

Authors
  1. Yougen Hu
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  2. Tao Zhao
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  3. Pengli Zhu
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  4. Yuan Zhang
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  5. Xianwen Liang
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  6. Rong Sun
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  7. Ching-Ping Wong
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Pengli Zhu or Rong Sun.

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A low-cost, printable, and stretchable strain sensor based on highly conductive elastic composites with tunable sensitivity for human motion monitoring

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Hu, Y., Zhao, T., Zhu, P. et al. A low-cost, printable, and stretchable strain sensor based on highly conductive elastic composites with tunable sensitivity for human motion monitoring. Nano Res. 11, 1938–1955 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-017-1811-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-017-1811-0

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