Polyaniline-nanospines engineered nanofibrous membrane based piezoresistive sensor for high-performance electronic skins

The development of a highly sensitive pressure sensor with a wide linear range is an emerging technological goal in the area of electronic skin (e-skin). Several studies have focused on imitating tactile perception closer to natural skin, however, there remains a great challenge in developing a complete artificial tactile sensory system with high sensitivity over a broad pressure range. Herein, a highly sensitive hybridized nanofibrous membrane based pressure sensor is newly proposed to overcome the limitation of the existing piezoresistive pressure sensor by improving the sensitivity and working range. As a primary sensing material, polyaniline (PANI)-nanospines are uniformly deposited throughout the hybrid hierarchical nanofibers to achieve a high sensitivity (179.1 kPa-1) with a low detection limit (1.2 Pa). Additionally, the highly deformable hierarchical nanofibrous membranes enables linear response over a broad pressure range (0 50 kPa) with a high durability (10,000 cycles). These results indicate that the fabricated pressure sensor has a broad application perspective, particularly in e skins and wearable electronic devices.

Automated summary

This paper proposes a new type of highly sensitive pressure sensor based on hybridized nanofibrous membrane technology, which overcomes the limitations of existing piezoresistive sensors and has high sensitivity and wide pressure range response. The sensor has broad application prospects in the field of electronic skin and wearable electronic devices.