Spray printed conjugated polymer on tissue paper for highly sensitive pressure sensors

Flexible pressure sensors are attracting global research interest because of their potential applications in wearable health monitoring, e-skin and artificial intelligence. However, a multiple-step fabrication process and sophisticated template are usually required in the construction of pressure sensing devices, which is time-consuming and greatly increases the fabrication cost. It is highly desirable to achieve high-performance pressure sensor devices via a simple and cost-efficient fabrication process. Here, a flexible pressure sensor is realized by employing spray printed conductive conjugated polymer on tissue paper as the active layer. The pressure sensor shows a high pressure sensitivity of 3.3 kPa(-1) in a broad detection range from 10 Pa to 10 kPa, a response time of 20 ms and a relaxation time of 30 ms. Additionally, the devices exhibit an excellent durability over 6000 loading/unloading cycles, demonstrating their great potential application in practice. With the merits of the excellent device performance of our pressure sensors, applications in wrist pulse monitoring and voice recognition are successfully demonstrated. (c) 2020 Society of Chemical Industry