Highly stable flexible pressure sensors with a quasi-homogeneous composition and interlinked interfaces.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 35273183.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-022-29093-y and PMC identifier 8913661.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Electronic skins (e-skins) are devices that can respond to mechanical stimuli and enable robots to perceive their surroundings. A great challenge for existing e-skins is that they may easily fail under extreme mechanical conditions due to their multilayered architecture with mechanical mismatch and weak adhesion between the interlayers. Here we report a flexible pressure sensor with tough interfaces enabled by two strategies: quasi-homogeneous composition that ensures mechanical match of interlayers, and interlinked microconed interface that results in a high interfacial toughness of 390 J·m<sup>-2</sup>. The tough interface endows the sensor with exceptional signal stability determined by performing 100,000 cycles of rubbing, and fixing the sensor on a car tread and driving 2.6 km on an asphalt road. The topological interlinks can be further extended to soft robot-sensor integration, enabling a seamless interface between the sensor and robot for highly stable sensing performance during manipulation tasks under complicated mechanical conditions.