Skin-Inspired Textile Electronics Enable Ultrasensitive Pressure Sensing

Small. 2024 Apr 2:e2310032. doi: 10.1002/smll.202310032. Online ahead of print.

Abstract

Wearable pressure sensors have attracted great interest due to their potential applications in healthcare monitoring and human-machine interaction. However, it is still a critical challenge to simultaneously achieve high sensitivity, low detection limit, fast response, and outstanding breathability for wearable electronics due to the difficulty in constructing microstructure on a porous substrate. Inspired by the spinosum microstructure of human skin for highly-sensitive tactile perception, a biomimetic flexible pressure sensor is designed and fabricated by assembling MXene-based sensing electrode and MXene-based interdigitated electrode. The product biomimetic sensor exhibits good flexibility and suitable air permeability (165.6 mm s-1), comparable to the typical air permeable garments. Benefiting from the two-stage amplification effect of the bionic intermittent structure, the product bionic sensor exhibits an ultrahigh sensitivity (1368.9 kPa-1), ultrafast response (20 ms), low detection limit (1 Pa), and high-linearity response (R2 = 0.997) across the entire sensing range. Moreover, the pressure sensor can detect a wide range of human motion in real-time through intimate skin contact, providing essential data for biomedical monitoring and personal medical diagnosis. This principle lays a foundation for the development of human skin-like high-sensitivity, fast-response tactile sensors.

Keywords: MXene; flexible; pressure sensor; skin‐inspired; textile.