Stencil Printing of Low-Cost Carbon-Based Stretchable Strain Sensors

The rapidly growing field of stretchable sensors has recently produced a myriad of sensing devices. However, these are often realized using expensive materials and complex manufacturing techniques. This work demonstrates stretchable stencil printed strain sensors, fabricated using either graphite or carbon black as a conductive filler in a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) matrix, that was also used as the device substrate. The strain sensors demonstrated highly linear responses and sensitivities (R-2 = 0.95 and R-2 = 0.98, and gauge factors of 2.77 and 1.50, respectively) that are comparable to other published sensors manufactured using similar or more complex processes.