Patterned Metal/Polymer Strain Sensor with Good Flexibility, Mechanical Stability and Repeatability for Human Motion...

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Biomedical Engineering
• Nanotechnology

Background:

• Flexible metal films are key for next-generation wearable health monitoring systems.
• Cracks and poor repeatability hinder the application of current flexible strain sensors.

Purpose of the Study:

• To fabricate a flexible wearable strain sensor with high sensitivity and good repeatability.
• To address the limitations of existing metal film-based wearable strain sensors.

Main Methods:

• Fabrication of a flexible wearable strain sensor using a patterned metal/polymer composite.
• Utilizing nanoimprint lithography for material fabrication.
• Mechanical property evaluation through cyclic tension and bending tests.

Main Results:

• The sensor demonstrated high sensitivity with gauge factors of 10 (strain < 50%) and 40 (50% ≤ strain ≤ 70%).
• Excellent mechanical stability and repeatability were confirmed by a small ΔR/R0 error line across multiple samples.
• Real-time detection of human body activities like swallowing and joint bending was achieved.

Conclusions:

• The developed sensor overcomes key limitations of existing wearable strain sensors, offering high performance.
• The fabricated device shows significant potential for practical applications in wearable human body monitoring.
• This work advances the development of reliable and sensitive flexible electronic devices for remote healthcare.