Boron nitride-enabled printing of a highly sensitive and flexible iontronic pressure sensing system for spatial mapping

• Published in: Microsystems & nanoengineering Vol. 9; no. 1; p. 68
• Main Authors: Yang, Zekun, Duan, Qikai, Zang, Junbin, Zhao, Yunlong, Zheng, Weihao, Xiao, Ran, Zhang, Zhidong, Hu, Liangwei, Wu, Guirong, Nan, Xueli, Zhang, Zengxing, Xue, Chenyang, Gao, Libo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 26-05-2023; Springer Nature B.V; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 639/166/987; 639/925/927/511; Boron; Boron nitride; Engineering; Ionic liquids; Ions; Mass production; Pressure; Pressure sensors; Printing; Screen printing; Sensitivity; Sensor arrays; Sensors; Two dimensional materials; Wrist; Electrical and electronic engineering; Sensors
• ISSN: 2055-7434; 2096-1030; 2055-7434
• DOI: 10.1038/s41378-023-00543-x

Recently, flexible iontronic pressure sensors (FIPSs) with higher sensitivities and wider sensing ranges than conventional capacitive sensors have been widely investigated. Due to the difficulty of fabricating the nanostructures that are commonly used on electrodes and ionic layers by screen printing techniques, strategies for fabricating such devices using these techniques to drive their mass production have rarely been reported. Herein, for the first time, we employed a 2-dimensional (2D) hexagonal boron nitride (
h
-BN) as both an additive and an ionic liquid reservoir in an ionic film, making the sensor printable and significantly improving its sensitivity and sensing range through screen printing. The engineered sensor exhibited high sensitivity (S
min
> 261.4 kPa
−1
) and a broad sensing range (0.05–450 kPa), and it was capable of stable operation at a high pressure (400 kPa) for more than 5000 cycles. In addition, the integrated sensor array system allowed accurate monitoring of wrist pressure and showed great potential for health care systems. We believe that using
h
-BN as an additive in an ionic material for screen-printed FIPS could greatly inspire research on 2D materials for similar systems and other types of sensors.
Hexagonal boron nitride (
h
-BN) was employed for the first time to make iontronic pressure sensor arrays with high sensitivity and a broad sensing range by screen printing.