C-axis vertically aligned ZnO nanorod arrays were synthesized on a ZnO thin film through a simple hydrothermal route. The nanorods have a diameter of 30–100 nm and a length of about several hundred nanometres. The gas sensor fabricated from ZnO nanorod arrays showed a high sensitivity to H2 from room temperature to a maximum sensitivity at 250 °C and a detection limit of 20 ppm. In addition, the ZnO gas sensor also exhibited excellent responses to NH3 and CO exposure. Our results demonstrate that the hydrothermally grown vertically aligned ZnO nanorod arrays are very promising for the fabrication of cost effective and high performance gas sensors.

Recently, wearable devices have been attracting significantly increased interest in human motion detection and human physiological signal monitoring. Currently, it is still a great challenge to fabricate strain sensors with high performance and good fit to the human body. In this work, we fabricated a close-fitting and wearable graphene textile strain sensor based on a graphene textile without polymer encapsulation. Graphene oxide acts as a colorant to dye the polyester fabric and is reduced at high temperature, which endows the graphene textile strain sensor with excellent performance. Compared with the previously reported strain sensors, our strain sensor exhibits a distinctive negative resistance variation with increasing strain. In addition, the sensor also demonstrates fascinating performance, including high sensitivity, long-term stability, and great comfort. Based on its superior performance, the graphene textile strain sensor can be knitted on clothing for detecting both subtle and large human motions, showing the tremendous potential for applications in wearable electronics.

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Pressure sensors are a key component in electronic skin (e-skin) sensing systems. Most reported resistive pressure sensors have a high sensitivity at low pressures (<5 kPa) to enable ultra-sensitive detection. However, the sensitivity drops significantly at high pressures (>5 kPa), which is inadequate for practical applications. For example, actions like a gentle touch and object manipulation have pressures below 10 kPa, and 10–100 kPa, respectively. Maintaining a high sensitivity in a wide pressure range is in great demand. Here, a flexible, wide range and ultra-sensitive resistive pressure sensor with a foam-like structure based on laser-scribed graphene (LSG) is demonstrated. Benefitting from the large spacing between graphene layers and the unique v-shaped microstructure of the LSG, the sensitivity of the pressure sensor is as high as 0.96 kPa−1 in a wide pressure range (0 ~ 50 kPa). Considering both sensitivity and pressure sensing range, the pressure sensor developed in this work is the best among all reported pressure sensors to date. A model of the LSG pressure sensor is also established, which agrees well with the experimental results. This work indicates that laser scribed flexible graphene pressure sensors could be widely used for artificial e-skin, medical-sensing, bio-sensing and many other areas.

Hardware implementation of artificial synapses/neurons with 2D solid-state devices is of great significance for nanoscale brain-like computational systems. Here, 2D MoS synaptic/neuronal transistors are fabricated by using poly(vinyl alcohol) as the laterally coupled, proton-conducting electrolytes. Fundamental synaptic functions, such as an excitatory postsynaptic current, paired-pulse facilitation, and a dynamic filter for information transmission of biological synapse, are successfully emulated. Most importantly, with multiple input gates and one modulatory gate, spiking-dependent logic operation/modulation, multiplicative neural coding, and neuronal gain modulation are also experimentally demonstrated. The results indicate that the intriguing 2D MoS transistors are also very promising for the next-generation of nanoscale neuromorphic device applications.

Traditional sound sources and sound detectors are usually independent and discrete in the human hearing range. To minimize the device size and integrate it with wearable electronics, there is an urgent requirement of realizing the functional integration of generating and detecting sound in a single device. Here we show an intelligent laser-induced graphene artificial throat, which can not only generate sound but also detect sound in a single device. More importantly, the intelligent artificial throat will significantly assist for the disabled, because the simple throat vibrations such as hum, cough and scream with different intensity or frequency from a mute person can be detected and converted into controllable sounds. Furthermore, the laser-induced graphene artificial throat has the advantage of one-step fabrication, high efficiency, excellent flexibility and low cost, and it will open practical applications in voice control, wearable electronics and many other areas.

A mechanical sensor with graphene porous network (GPN) combined with polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) is demonstrated by the first time. Using the nickel foam as template and chemically etching method, the GPN can be created in the PDMS-nickel foam coated with graphene, which can achieve both pressure and strain sensing properties. Because of the pores in the GPN, the composite as pressure and strain sensor exhibit wide pressure sensing range and highest sensitivity among the graphene foam-based sensors, respectively. In addition, it shows potential applications in monitoring or even recognize the walking states, finger bending degree, and wrist blood pressure.

Graphene strain sensors have promising prospects of applications in detecting human motion. However, the shortage of graphene growth and patterning techniques has become a challenging issue hindering the application of graphene strain sensors. Therefore, we propose wafer-scale flexible strain sensors with high-performance, which can be fabricated in one-step laser scribing. The graphene films could be obtained by directly reducing graphene oxide film in a Light-Scribe DVD burner. The gauge factor (GF) of the graphene strain sensor (10 mm × 10 mm square) is 0.11. In order to enhance the GF further, graphene micro-ribbons (20 μm width, 0.6 mm long) has been used as strain sensors, of which the GF is up to 9.49. The devices may conform to various application requirements, such as high GF for low-strain applications and low GF for high deformation applications. The work indicates that laser scribed flexible graphene strain sensors could be widely used in medical-sensing, bio-sensing, artificial skin and many other areas.