Integrated Flexible, Waterproof, Transparent, and Self-Powered Tactile Sensing Panel

Abstract

Portable and wearable electronic devices are human-centered devices; therefore, many unique attributes are highly desirable, such as flexibility, being self-powered, and waterproof. These properties render devices excellent adaptivity in harsh operation environments. In this work, we report an integrated triboelectric tactile sensor array with flexible, transparent, self-powered, and waterproof features. Each tactile sensor is a surface nano/microtexture enhanced triboelectric nanogenerator. The sensor array can serve as a touch panel for electronic devices. Owing to a unique design of a built-in triboelectric contact pair and an electrical shielding layer, an individual pixel of the fabricated tactile sensor array can generate an open circuit voltage up to 1.613 V and a short circuit current density of 47.308 mA/m(2) under 612.5 kPa. The tactile sensors can produce stable voltage signals regardless of the materials of the touching objects, and work stably both in ambient and aqueous environments. To examine the touch panel function of a sensor array, a matrix of 10 × 10 individually addressable 4 mm × 4 mm triboelectric sensors has been integrated into a thin, transparent, and flexible film, and the 2-D touch mapping has been successfully demonstrated. The unique triboelectric tactile sensor array reported here is robust and highly versatile, and it may find broad applications in display, wearable electronics, artificial skins, Internet of Things (IoT), etc.

Optimizing ultrathin Ag films for high performance oxide-metal-oxide flexible transparent electrodes through surface energy modulation and template-stripping procedures

“…Transparent conductive electrodes (TCEs) with high conductivity and transparency are essential elements for the advanced optoelectronic devices, such as touchscreen panels (TSPs), solar cells (SCs), and organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs)1234. To date, conductive films including conducting metal oxides, graphene, carbon nanotubes (CNTs), conducting polymers, metal nanowires, metal mesh, ultrathin metal films (UTMFs), and hybrids of them have been reported as potential candidates to replace traditionally indium tin oxide (ITO), which is limited by its fragility, high refractive index, limited indium supplies, and high processing temperature56789101112.…”

Bioinspired Triboelectric Nanogenerators as Self‐Powered Electronic Skin for Robotic Tactile Sensing

“…The interlocking structures of AgNWs and PDMS tribo-layers lead to larger effective contact areas than those with flat surfaces, resulting in higher measurement sensitivity. For instance, the micropyramid array patterned triboelectric sensor presented by Jiang et al demonstrated a sensitivity of only 2.82 ± 0.187 mV kPa −1 , [46] while the hemispheres-array-structured TENG pressure sensor reported by Lee et al achieved a sensitivity of ≈28.8 mV kPa −1 . This is potentially due to the fact that the relatively thick film (≈150 µm) of PTFE with large modulus (860 MPa-1.6 GPa [43,44] ), which is about four orders of magnitude larger than PDMS (≈1-3 MPa), [45] results in significantly increased stiffness of the microstructures which prohibits the interlocking contact under external load.…”

A Water Dissolvable Electrolyte with an Ionic Liquid for Eco‐Friendly Electronics

“…To suppress the cost of frequent exchange of battery modules and to extend the longevity of the products over a few years, efforts are paid to develop a new technology to retrieve electrical power from the environments including vibrations, radio waves, and lights . Even battery‐less sensors are under study to solve the issues associated with the power source.…”