High‐performance XSBR‐based flexible strain sensors enabled by pleated microcrack structure

Abstract

Flexible strain sensors are attracting attention in areas such as medical monitoring sensing and rehabilitation therapy monitoring due to their powerful ability to sense, process, transmit and display complex information. However, it is an urgent challenge to realize the trade‐off between excellent performances such as high sensitivity, high linearity, wide strain sensing range and high durability. Herein, we prepare stretchable conductive composites with wrinkle composite micro‐crack structure by combining carboxystyrene butadiene rubber (XSBR) layer and carboxymethyl cellulose@Ag nanowire‐CNTs (CMC@AgNWs‐CNTs) conductive layer. Based on interfacial interactions, it can be adapted to different needs by adjusting the thickness of the strain sensing layer. When the thickness of the strain sensing layer is 4 μm, the strain sensor has a wide sensing range (strain capacity up to 300%) and high sensitivity (strain sensing factor of 484). At a thickness of 8 μm, the strain sensing performance exhibits a wide strain range, high linear fit and good cyclic stability. This work provides a new research idea to improve the comprehensive performance of flexible strain sensors and the contradiction between wide sensing range, high sensitivity and high linearity.