School of Chemical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU), Suwon 16419, Republic of Korea.
Nanoscale. 2018 Mar 1;10(9):4354-4360. doi: 10.1039/c7nr07696g.
Although sensitivity and durability are desirable in a sensor, both of them cannot be easily achieved. Site-specific and effective signal acquisition on the limited area of a sensor inevitably allows fatigue accumulation and contamination. For example, an ultrasensitive nanoscale-crack-based sensor for detecting a mechanical stimulus with tremendous sensitivity (a gauge factor greater than 2000 under 2% strain), yet limited durability (up to a few thousand stretching cycles in tensile tests) has been presented previously. Herein, we suggest a simple yet robust nanoscale-crack-based sensor that achieves remarkable durability through the use of a self-healable polymer. The self-healable polymer helps the crack gap recover and maintain high stability for 1 million cycles under 2% strain. Moreover, site-specific recovery with infrared light irradiation was demonstrated with monolithic arrayed sensors. The proposed strategy provides a unique solution to achieving highly enhanced durability and high mechanosensitivity, which are typically incompatible.
虽然传感器的灵敏度和耐用性都是理想的特性，但这两者往往难以兼得。在传感器有限的区域内实现特定位置和有效的信号采集，不可避免地会导致疲劳积累和污染。例如，之前已经提出了一种基于纳米裂纹的超灵敏传感器，用于检测机械刺激，具有极高的灵敏度（应变小于 2%时，灵敏系数大于 2000），但耐用性有限（在拉伸试验中，拉伸循环次数最多可达几千次）。在这里，我们提出了一种简单但坚固的基于纳米裂纹的传感器，通过使用自修复聚合物实现了显著的耐用性。自修复聚合物有助于在 2%的应变下，使裂纹间隙恢复并保持 100 万次循环的高稳定性。此外，通过使用红外光照射还证明了特定位置的恢复。所提出的策略为实现高度增强的耐用性和高机械灵敏度提供了独特的解决方案，而这两者通常是相互排斥的。
