Liquid Metal Patterned Stretchable and Soft Capacitive Sensor with Enhanced Dielectric Property Enabled by Graphite Nanofiber Fillers

In this work, we introduce liquid metal patterned stretchable and soft capacitive sensor with enhanced dielectric properties enabled by graphite nanofiber (GNF) fillers dispersed in polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) substrate. We oxidized gallium-based liquid metal that exhibited excellent wetting behavior on the surface of the composites to enable patterning of the electrodes by a facile stencil printing. The fluidic behavior of the liquid metal electrode and modulated dielectric properties of the composite (k = 6.41 +/- 0.092@6 wt % at 1 kHz) was utilized to fabricate stretchable and soft capacitive sensor with ability to distinguish various hand motions.

Automated summary

In this work, a liquid metal patterned stretchable and soft capacitive sensor with enhanced dielectric properties was introduced using graphite nanofiber fillers dispersed in a polydimethylsiloxane substrate. The combination of the fluidic behavior of the liquid metal electrode and modulated dielectric properties of the composite enabled the fabrication of a stretchable and soft capacitive sensor with the ability to distinguish various hand motions.