Institute of Complex Systems, Bioelectronics (ICS-8) and JARA - Fundamentals of Future Information Technology, Forschungszentrum Jülich, 52425 Jülich, Germany.
Nanoscale. 2018 Jan 18;10(3):992-1003. doi: 10.1039/c7nr07912e.
Nanoparticle (NP) materials with the capability to adjust their electrical and electro-mechanical properties facilitate applications in strain sensing technology. Traditional NP materials based on single component NPs lack a systematic and effective means of tuning their electrical and electro-mechanical properties. Here, we report on a new type of shell-binary NP material fabricated by self-assembly with either homogeneous or heterogeneous arrangements of NPs. Variable electrical and electro-mechanical properties were obtained for both materials. We show that the electrical and electro-mechanical properties of these shell-binary NP materials are highly tunable and strongly affected by the NP species as well as their corresponding volume fraction ratio. The conductivity and the gauge factor of these shell-binary NP materials can be altered by about five and two orders of magnitude, respectively. These shell-binary NP materials with different arrangements of NPs also demonstrate different volume fraction dependent electro-mechanical properties. The shell-binary NP materials with a heterogeneous arrangement of NPs exhibit a peaking of the sensitivity at medium mixing ratios, which arises from the aggregation induced local strain enhancement. Studies on the electron transport regimes and micro-morphologies of these shell-binary NP materials revealed the different mechanisms accounting for the variable electrical and electro-mechanical properties. A model based on effective medium theory is used to describe the electrical and electro-mechanical properties of such shell-binary nanomaterials and shows an excellent match with experiment data. These shell-binary NP materials possess great potential applications in high-performance strain sensing technology due to their variable electrical and electro-mechanical properties.
具有调节其电学和机电性能能力的纳米粒子 (NP) 材料促进了应变传感技术的应用。基于单一组分 NPs 的传统 NP 材料缺乏系统有效的调节其电学和机电性能的方法。在这里，我们报告了一种新型的壳层二元 NP 材料，它是通过自组装形成的，具有 NPs 的均匀或不均匀排列。两种材料都获得了可变的电学和机电性能。我们表明，这些壳层二元 NP 材料的电学和机电性能具有高度可调性，并受到 NP 种类及其相应的体积分数比的强烈影响。这些壳层二元 NP 材料的电导率和应变系数可分别改变约五个和两个数量级。具有不同 NPs 排列的这些壳层二元 NP 材料也表现出不同的体积分数依赖性机电性能。具有 NPs 不均匀排列的壳层二元 NP 材料在中等混合比下表现出灵敏度的峰值，这是由于聚集诱导的局部应变增强所致。对这些壳层二元 NP 材料的电子输运机制和微观形貌的研究揭示了导致其电学和机电性能变化的不同机制。基于有效介质理论的模型用于描述这种壳层二元纳米材料的电学和机电性能，与实验数据吻合得很好。由于其可变的电学和机电性能，这些壳层二元 NP 材料在高性能应变传感技术中有很大的应用潜力。
