TY - JOUR
T1 - Highly Aligned, Anisotropic Carbon Nanofiber Films for Multidirectional Strain Sensors with Exceptional Selectivity
AU - Lee, Jeng Hun
AU - Kim, Jungmo
AU - Liu, Dan
AU - Guo, Fengmei
AU - Shen, Xi
AU - Zheng, Qingbin
AU - Jeon, Seokwoo
AU - Kim, Jang Kyo
N1 - Funding Information:
This project was financially supported by the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong SAR (GRF Project Nos. 16229216, 16209917, and 16205517). J.-H.L. is the recipient of the Hong Kong Ph.D. Fellowship and won the 1st Prize of the Young Researcher Awards sponsored by Elsevier at the 11th Asian Australasian Conference on Composite Materials (ACCM-11, July 2018 in Cairns, Australia) for presentation of this work. Technical assistance from the Advanced Engineering Materials facilities (AEMF), the Materials Characterization and Preparation Facilities (MCPF) and the Lakerveld Lab of HKUST is appreciated.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
PY - 2019/7/18
Y1 - 2019/7/18
N2 - Realization of sensing multidirectional strains is essential to understanding the nature of complex motions. Traditional uniaxial strain sensors lack the capability to detect motions working in different directions, limiting their applications in unconventional sensing technology areas, like sophisticated human–machine interface and real-time monitoring of dynamic body movements. Herein, a stretchable multidirectional strain sensor is developed using highly aligned, anisotropic carbon nanofiber (ACNF) films via a facile, low-cost, and scalable electrospinning approach. The fabricated strain sensor exhibits semitransparency, good stretchability of over 30%, outstanding durability for over 2500 cycles, and remarkable anisotropic strain sensing performance with maximum gauge factors of 180 and 0.3 for loads applied parallel and perpendicular to fiber alignment, respectively. Cross-plied ACNF strain sensors are fabricated by orthogonally stacking two single-layer ACNFs, which present a unique capability to distinguish the directions and magnitudes of strains with a remarkable selectivity of 3.84, highest among all stretchable multidirectional strain sensors reported so far. Their unconventional applications are demonstrated by detecting multi-degrees-of-freedom synovial joint movements of the human body and monitoring wrist movements for systematic improvement of golf performance. The potential applications of novel multidirectional sensors reported here may shed new light into future development of next-generation soft, flexible electronics.
AB - Realization of sensing multidirectional strains is essential to understanding the nature of complex motions. Traditional uniaxial strain sensors lack the capability to detect motions working in different directions, limiting their applications in unconventional sensing technology areas, like sophisticated human–machine interface and real-time monitoring of dynamic body movements. Herein, a stretchable multidirectional strain sensor is developed using highly aligned, anisotropic carbon nanofiber (ACNF) films via a facile, low-cost, and scalable electrospinning approach. The fabricated strain sensor exhibits semitransparency, good stretchability of over 30%, outstanding durability for over 2500 cycles, and remarkable anisotropic strain sensing performance with maximum gauge factors of 180 and 0.3 for loads applied parallel and perpendicular to fiber alignment, respectively. Cross-plied ACNF strain sensors are fabricated by orthogonally stacking two single-layer ACNFs, which present a unique capability to distinguish the directions and magnitudes of strains with a remarkable selectivity of 3.84, highest among all stretchable multidirectional strain sensors reported so far. Their unconventional applications are demonstrated by detecting multi-degrees-of-freedom synovial joint movements of the human body and monitoring wrist movements for systematic improvement of golf performance. The potential applications of novel multidirectional sensors reported here may shed new light into future development of next-generation soft, flexible electronics.
KW - aligned carbon nanofibers
KW - complex motion detections
KW - electrospinning
KW - multidirectional strain sensors
KW - soft electronics
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85066157483&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1002/adfm.201901623
DO - 10.1002/adfm.201901623
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85066157483
SN - 1616-301X
VL - 29
JO - Advanced Functional Materials
JF - Advanced Functional Materials
IS - 29
M1 - 1901623
ER -