Highly Stable Low-Strain Flexible Sensors Based on Gold Nanoparticles/Silica Nanohelices

Highly Stable Low-Strain Flexible Sensors Based on Gold Nanoparticles/Silica Nanohelices

Flexible strain sensors based on nanoparticle (NP) arrays show great potential for future applications such as electronic skin, flexible touchscreens, healthcare sensors, and robotics. However, even though these sensors can exhibit high sensitivity, they are usually not very stable under mechanical...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:ACS applied materials & interfaces Vol. 15; no. 33; pp. 39480 - 39493
Main Authors: Amestoy, Antoine, Rangra, Aarushee, Mansard, Vincent, Saya, Daisuke, Pouget, Emilie, Mazaleyrat, Estelle, Severac, Fabrice, Bergaud, Christian, Oda, Reiko, Delville, Marie-Hélène
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: United States American Chemical Society 23-08-2023
Washington, D.C. : American Chemical Society
Subjects:
Chemical Sciences
Functional Inorganic Materials and Devices
Instrumentation and Detectors
Material chemistry
Physics
dielectrophoresis
flexible electronics
self-assembly
strain sensor
gold nanoparticles
silica nanohelices
Self-assembly
Silica nanohelices
Dielectrophoresis
Strain sensor
Flexible electronics
Gold nanoparticles
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Flexible strain sensors based on nanoparticle (NP) arrays show great potential for future applications such as electronic skin, flexible touchscreens, healthcare sensors, and robotics. However, even though these sensors can exhibit high sensitivity, they are usually not very stable under mechanical cycling and often exhibit large hysteresis, making them unsuitable for practical applications. In this work, strain sensors based on silica nanohelix (NH) arrays grafted with gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) can overcome these critical aspects. These 10 nm AuNPs are functionalized with mercaptopropionic acid (MPA) and different ratios of thiol-polyethylene glycol-carboxylic acid (HS-PEG7-COOH) to optimize the colloidal stability of the resulting NH@AuNPs nanocomposite suspensions, control their aggregation state, and tune the thickness of the insulating layer. They are then grafted covalently onto the surface of the NHs by chemical coupling. These nanomaterials exhibit a well-defined arrangement of AuNPs, which follows the helicity of the silica template. The modified NHs are then aligned by dielectrophoresis (DEP) between interdigitated electrodes on a flexible substrate. The flexibility, stability, and especially sensitivity of these sensors are then characterized by electromechanical measurements and scanning electron microscopy observations. These strain sensors based on NH@AuNPs nanocomposites are much more stable than those containing only nanoparticles and exhibit significantly reduced hysteresis and high sensitivity at very slight strains. They can retain their sensitivity even after 2 million consecutive cycles with virtually unchanged responsiveness. These improved performances come from their mechanical stability and the use of nanohelices as stable mechanical templates.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
ISSN:1944-8244
1944-8252
DOI:10.1021/acsami.3c05852