Dielectric Gels with Microphase Separation for Wide-Range and Self-Damping Pressure Sensing

Omnipresent vibrations pose a significant challenge to flexible pressure sensors by inducing unstable output signals and curtailing their operational lifespan. Conventional soft sensing materials possess adequate elasticity but prove inadequate in countering vibrations. Moreover, the utilization of conventional highly-damping materials for sensing is challenging due to their substantial hysteresis. To tackle this dilemma, dielectric gels with controlled in situ microphase separation have been developed, leveraging the miscibility disparity between copolymers and solvents. The resulting gels exhibit exceptional compression stress, remarkable dielectric constant, and exceptional damping capabilities. Furthermore, flexible pressure sensors based on these microphase-separated gels show a wide detection range and low detection limit, more importantly, excellent sensing performance on vibrating surfaces. This work offers high potentials for applying flexible pressure sensors in complex practical scenarios and opens up new avenues for applications in soft electronics, biomimetic robots, and intelligent sensing.