A Stretchable, Highly Sensitive, and Multimodal Mechanical Fabric Sensor Based on Electrospun Conductive Nanofiber Yarn for Wearable Electronics

• Published in: Advanced materials technologies 2019-03, Vol.4 (3), p.n/a
• Main Authors: Nan, Nan, He, Jianxin, You, Xiaolu, Sun, Xianqiang, Zhou, Yuman, Qi, Kun, Shao, Weili, Liu, Fan, Chu, Yanyan, Ding, Bin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: electronic skin; electrospinning nanofiber; fabric sensor; human exercise and health monitoring; yarns
• ISSN: 2365-709X; 2365-709X
• DOI: 10.1002/admt.201800338

The development of highly sensitive, stretchable, and wearable electronic skin with multimodal mechanical‐sensing performance is of great research value for applications in health monitoring, and wearable electronic devices. In this work, a fabric‐like sensor with high flexibility and weavability that could detect the mechanical forces induced by pressure, strain, and flexion is designed. The fabric‐like sensor is woven by composite yarns (GCNF@ECYs) formed by winding graphene oxide‐doped polyacrylonitrile nanofiber yarns with in situ polymerized conductive polypyrrole on elastic yarns. The hierarchical structure of the fabric ranged from the macroscopic yarn to the submicron‐scale fibers to the nanometer‐scale particles as well as the wrapped structure constructed by winding conductive nanofiber yarn on elastic yarn. This offers more conductive pathways, larger deformation space, and multimodal mechanical‐sensing capabilities. The GCNF@ECY sensor unit has high sensitivity (the gauge factor was ≈68), wide pressure‐sensing range, excellent cycling stability, and good repeatability (over 10 000 cycles). The sensor can detect human respiration, facial expressions, pulse monitoring, and a full range of human motion. Moreover, the fabric sensor can be easily woven into textiles to produce electronic textiles with great potential in wearable human health monitoring electronics devices. In this work, a fabric‐like sensor with high flexibility and weavability that could detect the mechanical forces induced by pressure, strain, and flexion is designed. The sensor unit has high sensitivity (the gauge factor is ≈68), wide pressure‐sensing range, excellent cycling stability, and good repeatability (over 10 000 cycles).