Highly stretchable and sensitive strain sensor based on silver nanowire-elastomer nanocomposite

ACS Nano. 2014 May 27;8(5):5154-63. doi: 10.1021/nn501204t. Epub 2014 Apr 29.

Abstract

The demand for flexible and wearable electronic devices is increasing due to their facile interaction with human body. Flexible, stretchable and wearable sensors can be easily mounted on clothing or directly attached onto the body. Especially, highly stretchable and sensitive strain sensors are needed for the human motion detection. Here, we report highly flexible, stretchable and sensitive strain sensors based on the nanocomposite of silver nanowire (AgNW) network and PDMS elastomer in the form of the sandwich structure (i.e., AgNW thin film embedded between two layers of PDMS). The AgNW network-elastomer nanocomposite based strain sensors show strong piezoresistivity with tunable gauge factors in the ranges of 2 to 14 and a high stretchability up to 70%. We demonstrate the applicability of our high performance strain sensors by fabricating a glove integrated with five strain sensors for the motion detection of fingers and control of an avatar in the virtual environment.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Clothing
  • Dimethylpolysiloxanes / chemistry
  • Elasticity
  • Elastomers
  • Electrochemistry
  • Electronics
  • Equipment Design
  • Fingers / physiology
  • Hand / physiology*
  • Humans
  • Materials Testing
  • Metal Nanoparticles / chemistry*
  • Monitoring, Ambulatory / methods
  • Motion
  • Nanocomposites / chemistry*
  • Nanotechnology / methods*
  • Nanowires / chemistry*
  • Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted
  • Silver / chemistry*
  • Silver Compounds / chemistry
  • Software
  • Stress, Mechanical

Substances

  • Dimethylpolysiloxanes
  • Elastomers
  • Silver Compounds
  • Silver
  • baysilon