Highly Sensitive, Wearable, Durable Strain Sensors and Stretchable Conductors Using Graphene/Silicon Rubber Composites
Open accessAbstract
Highly sensitive, wearable and durable strain sensors are vital to the development of health monitoring systems, smart robots and human machine interfaces. The recent sensor fabrication progress is respectable, but it is limited by complexity, low sensitivity and unideal service life. Herein a facile, cost‐effective and scalable method is presented for the development of high‐performance strain sensors and stretchable conductors based on a composite film consisting of graphene platelets (GnPs) and silicon rubber. Through calculation by the tunneling theory using experimental data, the composite film has demonstrated ideal linear and reproducible sensitivity to tensile strains, which is contributed by the superior piezoresistivity of GnPs having tunable gauge factors 27.7–164.5. The composite sensors fabricated in different days demonstrate pretty similar performance, enabling applications as a health‐monitoring device to detect various human motions from finger bending to pulse. They can be used as electronic skin, a vibration sensor and a human‐machine interface controller. Stretchable conductors are made by coating and encapsulating GnPs with polydimethyl siloxane to create another composite; this structure allows the conductor to be readily bent and stretched with sufficient mechanical robustness and cyclability.
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Wearable strain sensors with a large strain detection range are widely used to monitor body motions, including finger bending, forearm muscle movements, and knee motions.
“Wearable strain sensors with a large strain detection range are widely used to monitor body motions, including finger bending, [41,52,120,123,126] forearm muscle movements, [21,44,52,103,120,123,153] and knee motions.[41,121,153]”
From Nanomaterial-Enabled Wearable Sensors for Healthcare (2018) · cites this paper as [123]
Phonation vibrations and voice patterns can be monitored using a strain sensor or a pressure sensor attached to the neck.
“The phonation vibrations and voice patterns can be monitored using a strain sensor [44,52,103,120,121,123,126] or a pressure sensor [57,141] attached to the neck.”
From Nanomaterial-Enabled Wearable Sensors for Healthcare (2018) · cites this paper as [123]
Recognizing emotional expressions such as laughing, crying, blinking eyes, and others has been realized by using strain sensors to monitor the associated skin movements.
“Recognizing emotional expressions such as laughing, [46] crying, [46] blinking eyes, [46,103] and others [44,46,103,123] has been realized by using strain sensors to monitor the associated skin movements.”
From Nanomaterial-Enabled Wearable Sensors for Healthcare (2018) · cites this paper as [123]
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- Authors
- Shi, G., Zhao, Z., Pai, J., Lee, I., Zhang, L., Stevenson, C., Ishara, K., Zhang, R., Zhu, H., & Ma, J.
- Affiliations
- University of South Australia (AU)
- State Key Laboratory of Organic-Inorganic Composite Materials (CN)
- Graphlex Technology Pty Ltd Perth 6000 Australia
- Tsinghua University (CN)
- Corresponding author
- Ma, Jun
- Venue
- Advanced Functional Materials
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2016-09-14
- Volume
- 26
- Issue
- 42
- Pages
- 7614-7625
- ISSN
- 1616-301X (ISSN-L)
- 1616-3028
- OpenAlex
- W2520436021
- Cited by
- 399
- References
- 32
- Citations by year
- 2026: 14 · 2025: 21 · 2024: 27 · 2023: 32 · 2022: 48 · 2021: 56 · 2020: 65 · 2019: 70 · 2018: 43 · 2017: 23
- FWCI
- 21.86
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- hdl.handle.net
- Licence
- Locations
- Advanced Functional Materials (publishedVersion)
- UniSA Research Outputs Repository (University of South Australia) (acceptedVersion)
- Adelaide Research & Scholarship (AR&S) (University of Adelaide) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- Australian Research Council (LP160100717)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Biomedical Engineering › Advanced Sensor and Energy Harvesting Materials
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Electrical and Electronic Engineering › Nanomaterials and Printing Technologies
- Physical Sciences › Materials Science › Materials Chemistry › Graphene research and applications
- Keywords
- strain sensors, wearable sensors, graphene nanoplatelets, stretchable conductors, piezoresistivity, gauge factor, tunneling theory, polydimethylsiloxane encapsulation, electronic skin, health monitoring, human-machine interaction, vibration sensing, mechanical durability
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