Improving the comprehensive performance of strain flexible sensors by electron irradiation and temperature synergy

Abstract

With the continuous development of science and technology, people have an urgent demand for wearable flexible sensors. Therefore, how to obtain high performance wearable sensors at low cost has become an urgent problem to be solved. In this work, a method for surface modification of sensors based on electron irradiation is proposed. Hydroxylated multi-walled carbon nanotube (hydroxylated MWCNT)/ecoflex composite flexible sensors were irradiated under the synergistic effect of 1 MeV electron irradiation and temperature to improve their performance. It is found that under the synergistic effect of low temperature, more defects and active functional groups were introduced into the irradiated sensor, and thus its sensitivity was higher. At the maximum strain, the gauge factor (GF) of the irradiated sensor was 3.7 times that of the original. And when the irradiation fluence was 1 × 10¹⁴ e cm⁻², the response time and recovery time of the sensor were reduced by 57.1% and 75.0%, respectively. This synergistic modification method of electron irradiation and low temperature provides a new idea for obtaining wearable sensors with high performance.