Issue

Vol. 14 (2022)

High-Porosity Foam-Based Iontronic Pressure Sensor with Superhigh Sensitivity of 9280 kPa−1

https://doi.org/10.1007/s40820-021-00770-9
Qingxian Liu
School of Astronautics, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, Heilongjiang, People’s Republic of China
Yuan Liu
Department of Physics and TcSUH, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204, USA
Junli Shi
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, People’s Republic of China
Zhiguang Liu
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, People’s Republic of China
Quan Wang
Department of Mechanics and Aerospace Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, Guangdong, People’s Republic of China
Chuan Fei Guo
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, People’s Republic of China

Corresponding Author: Chuan Fei Guo

guocf@sustech.edu.cn

Nano-Micro Letters, Vol. 14 (2022), Article Number: 21

Abstract

Flexible pressure sensors with high sensitivity are desired in the fields of electronic skins, human–machine interfaces, and health monitoring. Employing ionic soft materials with microstructured architectures in the functional layer is an effective way that can enhance the amplitude of capacitance signal due to generated electron double layer and thus improve the sensitivity of capacitive-type pressure sensors. However, the requirement of specific apparatus and the complex fabrication process to build such microstructures lead to high cost and low productivity. Here, we report a simple strategy that uses open-cell polyurethane foams with high porosity as a continuous three-dimensional network skeleton to load with ionic liquid in a one-step soak process, serving as the ionic layer in iontronic pressure sensors. The high porosity (95.4%) of PU-IL composite foam shows a pretty low Young’s modulus of 3.4 kPa and good compressibility. A superhigh maximum sensitivity of 9,280 kPa−1 in the pressure regime and a high pressure resolution of 0.125% are observed in this foam-based pressure sensor. The device also exhibits remarkable mechanical stability over 5,000 compression-release or bending-release cycles. Such high porosity of composite structure provides a simple, cost-effective and scalable way to fabricate super sensitive pressure sensor, which has prominent capability in applications of water wave detection, underwater vibration sensing, and mechanical fault monitoring.


Highlights:


1 High porosity and low modulus of the active layer are found to contribute to high sensitivity in a capacitive pressure sensor.
2 Pressure sensor achieves a superhigh sensitivity of 9280 kPa-1 by using polyurethane-ionic liquid foam with a high porosity (95.4%) and a low modulus (3.4 kPa).

Keywords

High porosity Elastic modulus Compression deformation Iontronic pressure sensor Superhigh sensitivity
Liu, Qingxian, Yuan Liu, Junli Shi, Zhiguang Liu, Quan Wang, and Chuan Fei Guo. 2021. “High-Porosity Foam-Based Iontronic Pressure Sensor With Superhigh Sensitivity of 9280 kPa−1”. Nano-Micro Letters 14 (December):21. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40820-021-00770-9.
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