Abstract
Flexible strain sensors are an important component for future intelligent robotics. However, the majority of current strain sensors must be electrically connected to a corresponding monitoring system via conducting wires, which increases system complexity and restricts the working environment for monitoring strains. Here, stretchable graphene–polymer nanocomposites that act as strain sensors using a Joule heating effect are reported. When the resistance of the sensor changes in response to a strain, the resulting change in temperature is wirelessly detected in an intelligent robot. By engineering and optimizing the surface structure of graphene–polymer nanocomposites, the fabricated strain sensors exhibit excellent stability when subjected to periodic temperature signals over 400 cycles while being periodically strained and deliver a high strain sensitivity of 7.03 × 10−4 °C−1 %−1 for strain levels of 0% to 30%. As a wearable electronic device, the approach provides the capability to wirelessly monitor small strains for intelligent robots at a high strain resolution of ≈0.1%. Moreover, when the strain sensing system operates as a multichannel structure, it allows precise strain detection simultaneously, or in sequence, for each finger of an intelligent robot.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 1910809 |
Journal | Advanced Functional Materials |
Volume | 30 |
Issue number | 13 |
Early online date | 12 Feb 2020 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 20 Mar 2020 |
Funding
This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2016YFA0202701), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51472055), External Cooperation Program of BIC, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. 121411KYS820150028), the 2015 Annual Beijing Talents Fund (Grant No. 2015000021223ZK32), Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology (No. 2017ASKJ01), the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. Y8540XX2D2), and the “thousands talents” program for the pioneer researcher and his innovation team, China.
Keywords
- graphene–polymer
- joule heating effects
- strain sensors
- stretchable sensors
- wireless monitoring
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Chemistry
- General Materials Science
- Condensed Matter Physics