Wearable Force Touch Sensor Array Using a Flexible and Transparent Electrode

Transparent electrodes have been widely used for various electronics and optoelectronics, including flexible ones. Many nanomaterial-based electrodes, in particular 1D and 2D nanomaterials, have been proposed as next-generation transparent and flexible electrodes. However, their transparency, conductivity, large-area uniformity, and sometimes cost are not yet sufficient to replace indium tin oxide (ITO). Furthermore, the conventional ITO is quite rigid and susceptible to mechanical fractures under deformations (e.g., bending, folding). In this study, the authors report new advances in the design, fabrication, and integration of wearable and transparent force touch (touch and pressure) sensors by exploiting the previous efforts in stretchable electronics as well as novel ideas in the transparent and flexible electrode. The optical and mechanical experiment, along with simulation results, exhibit the excellent transparency, conductivity, uniformity, and flexibility of the proposed epoxy-copper-ITO (ECI) multilayer electrode. By using this multi-layered ECI electrode, the authors present a wearable and transparent force touch sensor array, which is multiplexed by Si nanomembrane p-i-n junction-type (PIN) diodes and integrated on the skin-mounted quantum dot light-emitting diodes. This novel integrated system is successfully applied as a wearable human-machine interface (HMI) to control a drone wirelessly. These advances in novel material structures and system-level integration strategies create new opportunities in wearable smart displays.