Structural engineering of gold thin films with channel cracks for ultrasensitive strain sensing

This work demonstrates that engineering of the connection channels in gold thin films is an effective way to alter its resistivity for improved sensitivity in strain sensors. We investigated the formation of channel cracks and explored the corresponding piezoresistive behavior. The developed strain sensor possessed GFs as high as 200 (epsilon < 0.5%), 1000 (0.5% < epsilon < 0.7%), and even greater than 5000 (0.7% < E < 1%), which are among the highest values reported thus far at such small deformation, and are promising in the applications of electronic skin, wearable sensors and health monitoring platforms.