Highly sensitive tactile sensors integrated with organic transistors

This paper presents a highly sensitive capacitive pressure sensor composed of a polymer dielectric film with a nano-needle structure. The nano-needle polymer films were prepared by facile fabrication methods including breath figures formation followed by stamping. The pressure sensitivity of the sensor reached 1.76 kPa(-1) in the low pressure range (<1 kPa), which is comparable to the sensitivity of human skin. Analysis of the geometries and densities effect was shown, and the nano-needle film showed better sensitivity in comparison to films with hemispherical or conical structures. The pressure sensors were integrated with printed organic thin film transistors to enable flexible, large-area tactile sensing applications. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4751354]