Journal
ACS APPLIED MATERIALS & INTERFACES
Volume 12, Issue 19, Pages 22200-22211Publisher
AMER CHEMICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.0c04709
Keywords
flexible strain sensor; wave-patterned microchannel; liquid metal; low hysteresis; wearable device; human motion monitoring
Funding
- National Key Research and Development Program of China [2019YFC1711701]
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [61803364, U1913216, U1713219]
- Shenzhen Fundamental Research Project [JCYJ20180302145549896]
- Enhancement Project for Shenzhen Biomedical Electronics Technology Public Service Platform
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Flexible strain sensors have been widely used in wearable electronic devices for body physical parameter capturing. However, regardless of the stretchability of the sensing material, the resolution of small strain changes or the hysteresis between loading/unloading states has always limited the various applications of these sensors. In this paper, a microfluidic flexible strain sensor was achieved by introducing liquid metal eutectic gallium indium (EGaIn) embedded into a wave-shaped microchannel elastomeric matrix (300 mu m width x 70 mu m height). The microfluidic sensor can withstand a strain of up to 320%, and the hysteresis performance was also improved from 6.79 to 1.02% by the wave-patterned structure which can restrain the viscoelasticity of the elastomer effectively. Moreover, an enhanced wave-shaped strain sensor was fabricated by increasing the length of the microfluidic channel; it has high sensitivity (GF = 4.91) and resolution, and even as low as 0.09% strain change could be detected, which is capable of resolving microdeformation; besides, the enhanced wave-shaped strain sensor exhibits quick response time (t = 116 ms), long-term stability, and durability under periodic dynamic load. As an example of potential applications, the enhanced flexible sensor showed excellent mechanical compliance and was successfully applied as a conceptual wearable device for distinctively monitoring various kinds of human body and robot activities, such as the different states of the finger, neck, breathing chest, robot's joint, and so forth. The flexible wave-shaped strain sensor has great promising applications for wearable electronics, motion recognition, healthcare, and soft robotics.
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