Soft and Stretchable Humidity‐Insensitive Thermoresistive Temperature Sensor with A Tensile Strain Modulated Sensitivity

• Published in: Macromolecular materials and engineering Vol. 309; no. 4
• Main Authors: Albeltagi, Ahmed, Tolvanen, Jarkko, Bhalerao, Sagar R., Hannu, Jari
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Weinheim John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01-04-2024; Wiley-VCH
• Subjects: Elastomers; Electronics; Humidity; Linearity; Photovoltaic cells; Polystyrene resins; resistive sensor; Sensitivity; Sensors; Silver; soft and stretchable temperature sensor; Solar cells; Stretchability; Temperature sensors; Tensile strain; wearable electronics; Wearable technology
• ISSN: 1438-7492; 1439-2054
• DOI: 10.1002/mame.202300379

Soft and stretchable electronics represents a high potential paradigm shift in field of electronics, for example, in applications related to solar cells, organic displays, electronic skin, and wearable sensors. In this work, a soft and stretchable humidity‐insensitive thermoresistive sensor is developed using interdigitated electrodes made of silver‐plated nylon fabric coated with silver‐ink and a layer of poly(3,4‐ethylenedioxythiophene)–poly(styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT: PSS) embedded into elastomer. The mechanical and thermoelectrical properties of the soft sensor are characterized and analyzed. The fabricated soft sensor provides a combination of linear temperature sensitivity of 0.46% °C
−1
with an
R
2
of 0.986 from 30 to 55 °C at 0% uniaxial tensile strain. It also exhibits excellent stability in environmental humidity ranging from ≈30% RH to ≈80% RH. The linear sensitivity is improved to 1.49% °C
−1
by applying a 40% pre‐measurement stretch to the sensor. Due to its good temperature sensitivity (0.46 to 1.49% °C
−1
), excellent linearity (0.986), and high stretchability (≈125%), the soft and stretchable temperature sensor proves to be a very promising solution for wearable temperature sensing.