Description

The electronic industry is witnessing burgeoning progress of wearable intelligent terminals as mankind approaches the era of “Internet of Things”. For emerging electronics skins, flexible pressure sensors are essential transducers that contribute to humanoid tactile perceptions. To date, achieving high sensitivities with broad detection ranges still remains a particular concern for flexible pressure sensing. Pulsed laser deposition is a convenient tool for nanomaterial preparation. Besides, ultrafast laser is powerful for the exquisite ablation and surface modification of nanostructures. However, such laser fabrication technologies have been seldom introduced for the development of tactile sensor performances. In this work, based on a hybrid technology involving ultrafast laser deposition and engraving, a brand-new, universal sensor strategy is proposed. Taking the advantage of high productivity, small thermal effect, and high spatial resolution of ultrafast laser processing, we facilely fabricated nanoarchitected, multilevel ridges as sensing layers of high performance pressure sensors. For the first time, the manipulation of localized conductivities, rather than contact topography is exploited for pressure sensing. By introducing this sensor strategy, an impressive 85-fold sensitivity amplification is realized while maintaining a detection range of 330 kPa, which outperforms most of its state-of-art counterparts. Based on experiments and a quantitative contact model, a formula G=P:(A∘K) is derived, revealing another advantage of this strategy to be compatible with conventional designs for synergistic sensor improvements. With excellent applicability demonstrated in diverse scenarios, this proposed strategy pioneers a new paradigm for tactile sensing, and shows promising prospects of laser fabrication  for the advancement of electronic skins.

Contributing Authors

  • Bin Feng
    Tsinghua university
  • Lei Liu
    Tsinghua university
  • Guisheng Zou
    Tsinghua university
Bin Feng
Tsinghua university
Track: Laser Nanomanufacturing
Session: Applications of Nanomanufacturing
Day of Week: Tuesday
Date/Time:
Location:

Keywords

  • Electronic Skins
  • Hybrid Subtractive And Additive
  • Laser Ablation
  • Pulsed Laser Deposition
  • Ultrafast Laser