Capturing environmental stimuli is an essential aspect of electronic skin applications in robotics and prosthetics. Sensors made of temperature- and humidity-responsive hydrogel and piezoelectric zinc oxide (ZnO) core-shell nanorods have shown the necessary sensitivity. This is achieved by using highly conformal and substrate independent deposition methods for the ZnO and the hydrogel, i.e., plasma enhanced atomic layer deposition (PEALD) and initiated chemical vapor deposition (iCVD). In this work, we demonstrate that the use of a multichamber reactor enables performing PEALD and iCVD, sequentially, without breaking the vacuum. The sequential deposition of uniform as well as conformal thin films responsive to force, temperature, and humidity improved the deposition time and quality significantly. Proper interlayer adhesion could be achieved via in situ interface activation, a procedure easily realizable in this unique multichamber reactor. Beyond the fabrication method, also the mechanical properties of the template used to embed the core-shell nanorods and the cross-linker density in the hydrogel were optimized following the results of finite element models. Finally, galvanostatic electrochemical impedance spectroscopy measurements showed how temperature and humidity stimuli have different effects on the device impedance and phase, and these differences can be the basis for stimuli recognition.
Keywords: core−shell nanostructures; hydrogel; multichamber reactor; piezoelectric; stimuli-responsive.