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Intrinsically stretchable polymer semiconductor based electronic skin for multiple perceptions of force, temperature, and visible light

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Abstract

As a stretchable seamless device, electronic skin (E-skin) has drawn enormous interest due to its skin-like sensing capability. Besides the basic perception of force and temperature, multiple perception that is beyond existing functions of human skin is becoming an important direction for E-skin developments. However, the present E-skins for multiple perceptions mainly rely on different sensing materials and heterogeneous integration, resulting in a complex device structure. Additionally, their stretchability is usually achieved by the complicated microstructure design of rigid materials. Here, we report an intrinsically stretchable polymer semiconductor based E-skin with a simple structure for multiple perceptions of force, temperature, and visible light. The E-skin is on the basis of poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) nanofibers percolated polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) composite polymer semiconductor, which is fabricated by a facile solution method. The E-skin shows reliable sensing capabilities when it is used to perceive strain, pressure, temperature, and visible light. Based on the E-skin, an intelligent robotic hand sensing and controlling system is further demonstrated. Compared with conventional E-skins for multiple perceptions, this E-skin only has a simple monolayer sensing membrane without the need of combining different sensing materials, heterogeneous integration, and complicated microstructure design. Such a strategy of utilizing intrinsically stretchable polymer semiconductor to create simple structured E-skin for multiple perceptions will promote the development of E-skins in a broad application scenario, such as artificial robotic skins, virtual reality, intelligent gloves, and biointegrated electronics.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 62074137), the Key Research, Development, and Promotion Program of Henan Province (No. 202102210004), and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2021TQ0288).

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  1. Dongjuan Liu and Pengcheng Zhu contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Materials Physics, Ministry of Education, School of Physics and Microelectronics, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, 450001, China

    Dongjuan Liu, Pengcheng Zhu, Fukang Zhang, Peishuo Li, Wenhao Huang, Chang Li, Ningning Han, Shuairong Mu, Hao Zhou & Yanchao Mao

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  1. Dongjuan Liu
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  2. Pengcheng Zhu
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  3. Fukang Zhang
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Correspondence to Yanchao Mao.

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Intrinsically stretchable polymer semiconductor based electronic skin for multiple perceptions of force, temperature, and visible light

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Liu, D., Zhu, P., Zhang, F. et al. Intrinsically stretchable polymer semiconductor based electronic skin for multiple perceptions of force, temperature, and visible light. Nano Res. 16, 1196–1204 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-4622-x

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