Flexible Porous Carbon Black-Polymer Composites with a High Gauge Factor

In this work, new conductive polymer films suitable for microfabrication have been developed. The solutions used are prepared by dispersing highly conductive nanoporous carbon blacks (n-CBs) in PHOTONEECE (R) (CBPh), polyvinyl alcohol (CBsPV), or gelatin (CBsGel). Conductive polymer composite thin films are formed by spin-coating on a clean glass substrate. The electrical conductivity and its response to strain are evaluated by a four-point bending method, which shows high gauge factors (GFs) of 150 and 523 for PVA-and gelatin-based composite films, respectively, in a low strain region. This clearly reveals the high potential capability of these novel nanocomposite films with the reported CB composite polymer showing a GF of similar to 100. It is considered that the porous structure of the n-CBs provides high sensitivity of flexible sensing elements that can be implemented into microfabrication processes easily.