Thermo-Responsive Self-Recoverable Porous Sensors with Writable Electrodes: Advancing Wearable Motion Detection

The remarkable applications of flexible and wearable sensors in the fields of human motion detection and health monitoring have attracted extensive attention from academic and industrial pools. However, creating advanced sensors capable of self-recovery, shape-editability, and multi-mode for long-term motion detection still remains challenging. Herein, a self-recoverable flexible porous sensor with diverse designability of electrodes is developed for comprehensive motion detection. Shape memory polymer (SMP) is utilized as a core material to manufacture the porous electrodes, which endows the sensor with excellent self-recoverability, enhanced structural robustness, and high flexibility. The porous electrodes further enable dual triboelectric and piezoresistive sensing modes, which can achieve versatile detection capabilities for various body movements and motion patterns. A writable vapor phase polymerization technique is employed to realize the shape-editability of the electrodes, ensuring adaptability to diverse body shapes and complex movements. The novel sensors are integrated into smart insoles, joint monitoring bands, and intelligent gloves, demonstrating the capabilities of the sensors in plantar pressure monitoring, joint motion tracking, tactile sensing, and information interaction. This work offers a promising strategy for the development of advanced wearable sensors with improved sustainability, reliability, and conformability.