Flexible normal-tangential force sensor with opposite resistance responding for highly sensitive artificial skin

Mu, Chunhong, Song, Yuanqiang, Huang, Wutong, Ran, Ao, Sun, Rujie, Xie, Weihua and Zhang, Huaiwu (2018) Flexible normal-tangential force sensor with opposite resistance responding for highly sensitive artificial skin. Advanced Functional Materials, 28 (18), [1707503]. (doi:10.1002/adfm.201707503).

Abstract

An electronic skin (e-skin) that can detect both normal and tangential forces with a differentiable signals output is essential for wearable electronics. A flexible, stretchable, and highly sensitive tactile sensor is presented that enables the detection of both normal and tangential forces, with specific opposite and thus easily being differentiated resistance changing outputs. The e-skin, which is based on two-sublayered carbon nanotubes (CNTs)/graphene oxide (GO) hybrid 3D conductive networks, that are anchored on a thin porous polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) layer, is synthesized via a porogen (GO wrapped NaCl) assisted self-assembling process. The fabricated CNTs/GO@PDMS-based e-skin shows superior sensitivity (gauge factor of 2.26 under a pressure loading of 1 kPa) to tangential force, moderate sensitivity (−0.31 kPa−1 at 0.05–3.8 kPa, and −0.03 kPa−1 at 3.8–6.3 kPa, respectively) to normal force, and a high-reproducible response over 5000 loading cycles including stretching, bending, and shearing. For applications, the e-skin can not only detect wrist pulsing, discriminating different roughness of surfaces, but also produce an obvious responding to an extremely slight ticking (

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