Institute of Flexible Electronics (IFE), MIIT Key Laboratory of Flexible Electronics (KLoFE), Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Flexible Electronics (KLoFE), Xi'an Key Laboratory of Flexible Electronics (KLoFE), Xi'an Institute of Flexible Electronics, Northwestern Polytechnical University (NPU), 127 West Youyi Road, Xi'an 710072, P. R. China.
Institute of Advanced Materials (IAM), Key Laboratory of Institute of Advanced Materials, Nanjing Tech University (NanjingTech), 30 South Puzhu Road, Nanjing 211816, P. R. China.
Nano Lett. 2020 May 13;20(5):3449-3458. doi: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.0c00372. Epub 2020 Apr 10.
Flexible strain sensors have been widely investigated with their rapid development in human-machine interfaces, soft robots, and medical care monitoring. Here, we report a new in situ catalytic strategy toward the fabrication of metallic aerogel hybrids, which are composed of vanadium nitride (VN) nanosheets decorated with well-defined vertically aligned carbon nanotube arrays (VN/CNTs) for the first time. In this architecture, the two-dimensional VN nanosheets as the main bone structure are favorable for the flexible devices due to their excellent structural compatibility during the repetitive deforming process. In addition, the sandwiched aerogel hybrids form highly conductive 3D network, affording outstanding sensitivity for the strain-responsive behaviors. Further, the VN/CNTs-based flexible strain sensors are successfully fabricated, showing a high gauge factor of 386 within a small strain of 10%, fast response, and extraordinary durability. The monitoring of physical signals and an actual real-time human-machine controlling system based on the sensors are also presented.
具有快速发展的人机界面、软体机器人和医疗保健监测功能的柔性应变传感器已经得到了广泛的研究。在这里，我们首次报道了一种新的原位催化策略，用于制造金属气凝胶杂化材料，该材料由氮化钒（VN）纳米片和具有良好定义的垂直排列碳纳米管阵列（VN/CNTs）组成。在这种结构中，二维 VN 纳米片作为主要的骨结构，由于其在重复变形过程中的优异结构兼容性，有利于柔性器件。此外，夹层气凝胶杂化材料形成了高度导电的 3D 网络，为应变响应行为提供了出色的灵敏度。进一步地，基于 VN/CNTs 的柔性应变传感器被成功制造，在 10%的小应变范围内表现出 386 的高应变系数、快速响应和非凡的耐用性。还展示了基于传感器的物理信号监测和实际实时人机控制系统。
