Soft Capacitive Pressure Sensor With Enhanced Sensitivity Assisted by ZnO NW Interlayers and Airgap

Highly sensitive capacitive pressure sensors with wide detection range are needed for applications such as human-machine interfaces, electronic skin in robotics, and health monitoring. However, it is challenging to achieve high sensitivity at the same time. Herein, we present an innovative approach obtain a highly sensor by introducing zinc oxide nanowire (ZnO NW) interlayer polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)/electrodes interface conventional metal-insulator-metal architecture. The ZnO NW significantly enhanced performance ~7 times higher (from 0.81%kPa ?1 5.6452%kPa low-pressure (0-10 kPa)) respect having PDMS only dielectric. improvement attributed charge separation electric dipole generation due displacement of Zn xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">+ O xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">? under applied pressure. Further, orientation NWs their placement between electrodes were investigated which includes either vertical or horizontal near electrodes, placing third middle dielectric air gap NWs/electrode. Among various combinations, introduction electrode revealed significant device ~50 enhancement kPa) more than 200 increase high-pressure (10-200 kPa), comparison PDMS-based sensor.