Facile Fabrication of an Ultrasensitive All-Fabric Wearable Pressure Sensor Based on Phosphorene-Gold Nanocomposites

Fabric-based sensors play a vital role in the development of wearable and flexible electronics. However, the research of wearable fabric-based sensors with high sensitivity, wearing comfortability, ease of fabrication, superior stability, and fast response time is full of challenges. In this study, an all-fabric flexible and wearable pressure sensor based on phosphorene-gold nanocomposites (BP-AuNCs) is developed. The sensor consists of a pair of screen-printed interdigital carbon electrodes (SPICEs) and a BP-AuNCs decorated fabric electrode. Benefiting from the microstructure of fabric fibers and the unique property of BP-AuNCs, the developed pressure sensor presents excellent piezoresistivity, including a high sensitivity up to 0.372 kPa(-1) (0-1.5 kPa), a rapid response time of 24 ms, good stability and durability (>4000 cycles), as well as washing durability. The distinguished performance of the flexible pressure sensor enables detection of subtle signal of human body motion, real-time monitoring of wrist pulse and respiratory. Importantly, the proposed all-fabric pressure sensor is fabricated by a simple process and is able to achieve high sensitivity while performing well in response time, wearing comfortability, stability, and reliability, demonstrating its great potential for smart wearable electronics.