Self-healable printed magnetic field sensors using alternating magnetic fields

• Published in: Nature communications 2022-11, Vol.13 (1), p.6587-6587, Article 6587
• Main Authors: Xu, Rui, Cañón Bermúdez, Gilbert Santiago, Pylypovskyi, Oleksandr V., Volkov, Oleksii M., Oliveros Mata, Eduardo Sergio, Zabila, Yevhen, Illing, Rico, Makushko, Pavlo, Milkin, Pavel, Ionov, Leonid, Fassbender, Jürgen, Makarov, Denys
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 147/135; 639/166/987; 639/166/988; 639/301/1005/1009; Augmented reality; Figure of merit; Fillers; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Industrial applications; Interfaces; Low noise; Magnetic Fields; Magnetics; Magnetism; Magnetoresistivity; Man-machine interfaces; Microparticles; multidisciplinary; Percolation; Recovery; Room temperature; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Sensitivity enhancement; Sensors; Substrates
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-34235-3

We employ alternating magnetic fields (AMF) to drive magnetic fillers actively and guide the formation and self-healing of percolation networks. Relying on AMF, we fabricate printable magnetoresistive sensors revealing an enhancement in sensitivity and figure of merit of more than one and two orders of magnitude relative to previous reports. These sensors display low noise, high resolution, and are readily processable using various printing techniques that can be applied to different substrates. The AMF-mediated self-healing has six characteristics: 100% performance recovery; repeatable healing over multiple cycles; room-temperature operation; healing in seconds; no need for manual reassembly; humidity insensitivity. It is found that the above advantages arise from the AMF-induced attraction of magnetic microparticles and the determinative oscillation that work synergistically to improve the quantity and quality of filler contacts. By virtue of these advantages, the AMF-mediated sensors are used in safety application, medical therapy, and human-machine interfaces for augmented reality. Flexible magnetic sensors with high sensitivity have a wide variety of medical and industrial uses, however, making such sensors robust and flexible at the same time can be challenging. Here, the authors demonstrate a high sensitivity flexible magnetic sensor that exhibits self-healing under an applied alternative magnetic field, with complete performance recovery.