State Key Laboratory of Material Processing and Die and Mould Technology, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), Wuhan, 430074, P. R. China.
Hubei Collaborative Innovation Center for Advanced Organic Chemical Materials, Hubei University, Wuhan, 430062, P. R. China.
Small. 2019 Mar;15(10):e1804559. doi: 10.1002/smll.201804559. Epub 2019 Feb 4.
Flexible pressure sensors as electronic skins have attracted wide attention to their potential applications for healthcare and intelligent robotics. However, the tradeoff between their sensitivity and pressure range restricts their practical applications in various healthcare fields. Herein, a cost-effective flexible pressure sensor with an ultrahigh sensitivity over an ultrawide pressure-range is developed by combining a sandpaper-molded multilevel microstructured polydimethylsiloxane and a reduced oxide graphene film. The unique multilevel microstructure via a two-step sandpaper-molding method leads to an ultrahigh sensitivity (2.5-1051 kPa ) and can detect subtle and large pressure over an ultrawide range (0.01-400 kPa), which covers the overall pressure regime in daily life. Sharp increases in the contact area and additional contact sites caused by the multilevel microstructures jointly contribute to such unprecedented performance, which is confirmed by in situ observation of the gap variations and the contact states of the sensor under different pressures. Examples of the flexible pressure sensors are shown in potential applications involving the detection of various human physiological signals, such as breathing rate, vocal-cord vibration, heart rate, wrist pulse, and foot plantar pressure. Another object manipulation application is also demonstrated, where the material shows its great potential as electronic skin intelligent robotics and prosthetic limbs.
具有柔性的压力传感器作为电子皮肤，由于其在医疗保健和智能机器人方面的潜在应用而受到广泛关注。然而，它们的灵敏度和压力范围之间的权衡限制了它们在各种医疗保健领域的实际应用。在此，通过结合砂纸成型的多级微结构化聚二甲基硅氧烷和还原氧化石墨烯薄膜，开发出一种具有超宽压力范围超高灵敏度的经济型柔性压力传感器。通过两步砂纸成型方法获得的独特多级微结构可实现超高灵敏度（2.5-1051 kPa），并可检测超宽范围内（0.01-400 kPa）的细微和较大压力，涵盖日常生活中的整个压力范围。多级微结构引起的接触面积和附加接触点的急剧增加共同促成了这种前所未有的性能，这通过传感器在不同压力下的间隙变化和接触状态的原位观察得到了证实。柔性压力传感器的应用实例包括检测各种人体生理信号，如呼吸频率、声带振动、心率、手腕脉搏和足底压力。还展示了另一个物体操纵应用，其中该材料作为电子皮肤智能机器人和假肢显示出巨大的潜力。
