High-Performance Flexible Temperature Sensors Based on Laser-Irradiated Ag-MWCNTs/PEDOT:PSS

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2024 Feb 7;16(5):6078-6087. doi: 10.1021/acsami.3c15734. Epub 2024 Jan 29.

Abstract

Recently, flexible temperature sensors have attracted significant interest due to their wide-ranging applications in areas such as biomedical monitoring, environmental monitoring, electronic skin, and intelligent robots. However, a combination of high sensitivity and high resolution remains a critical challenge. These properties depend on the synthesis techniques of the sensitive materials. In this work, we use a laser irradiation method to prepare a silver nanoparticle-modified carbon nanotube (Ag-MWCNT) which is further mixed with poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)-poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS). The developed temperature sensor exhibited a high sensitivity of -0.45% °C-1 and linearity with an R2 value of 0.998 in the temperature range of 25-80 °C. Additionally, the sensor demonstrated remarkable repeatability, making it suitable for real-time temperature monitoring of the human body and environment. This temperature sensor is successfully demonstrated in practical applications such as monitoring the temperature of various parts of the human body and sensing the spatial temperature. These demonstrations highlight their significant potential in electronic skin and other related fields.

Keywords: carbon nanotube; electronic skin; flexible temperature sensor; temperature coefficient of resistance; temperature monitoring.