A Highly Sensitive and Broad-Range Pressure Sensor Based on Polyurethane Mesodome Arrays Embedded with Silver Nanowires

Abstract

The pressure sensor with high sensitivity and a broad pressure sensing range is highly desired for flexible electronics. Here, a high-performance pressure sensor based on a hybrid structure was facilely fabricated using the glass template method, which consists of polyurethane (PU) mesodomes embedded with gradient-distributed silver nanowire (AgNW). Such a novel hybrid architecture enables the as-prepared PU/AgNW pressure sensor to have high sensitivity as well as a wide detection range. Moreover, the obtained PU/AgNW pressure sensors have a fast response time (20 ms), good cycling stability, and excellent flexibility. The pressure sensor, benefiting from its outstanding comprehensive sensing performance, can be used for expression recognition and human activity monitoring, showing tremendous application potential in wearable devices. The proposed architecture and developed methodology in this work is promising for future flexible electronic applications.

Keywords: gradient-distributed conductive network; mesodome array; polyurethane; pressure sensor; silver nanowire.