A highly elastic skin-like capacitive pressure sensor array ensuring electrical and mechanical robustness based on a thin all-elastomeric platform is presented.

Conventional mechanical crack-based strain sensors have high mechanosensitivity but suffer from limited stretchability and poor linearity. Here, we present a simple yet highly efficient strategy to enhance the strain-sensing performance of metal-based crack sensors based on platinum (Pt)/superaligned carbon nanotube (SACNT) hybrid conducting films. The proposed sensor is simply fabricated by transferring dry-spun SACNT films onto elastomer substrates and then sputtering Pt films. The SACNT underneath the Pt film endows the Pt crack sensors with large stretchability (ε = 100%) and excellent linearity (R² ≈ 0.996) while ensuring ultrahigh sensitivity (gauge factor ≈ 12 274) by modulating the cracking structure in the Pt film so that the cracked Pt parts can be bridged upon stretching even at high strains. In addition, the sensor response is found to be quite fast (≈257.7 ms) and stable even under long-term operation (2000 cycles at 50% strain). Based on their excellent strain-sensing performance and mechanical flexibility, the sensors are demonstrated to detect a wide range of human motions in real time. Moreover, two single sensors can be successfully assembled in a cross shape to detect complex multiaxial strains.

Highly stretchable strain sensors that are capable of collecting complex multi-axial, multidimensional strain information in real time are crucial in practical applications for human motion detection. Here we present a highly sensitive and selective multidimensional resistive strain sensor based on a monolithic integration of a stiffness-variant stretchable substrate and sensing film comprising a cross-shaped silver nanowire percolation network in a single device. The multidimensional strain sensor efficiently distinguishes strains in various directions with a large gauge factor (GF) of >20 and a wide strain-detectable range of up to 60%. The sensor also features a maximum difference in GF between the x- and y-axes of >20 and long-term performance stability for up to 500 strain cycles. The practicality of the sensor as a human motion detector is demonstrated by attaching it directly to a part of the human body and measuring the multidimensional strains that occur during motions in real time.