A flexible stretchable pressure sensor featuring a carbon nanotube porous sponge bionic–skin stratum spinosum electrode for health monitoring

Abstract

Flexible pressure sensors play a crucial role in human health monitoring. Traditional flexible sensors based on various microstructures have been extensively reported by previous researchers. However, their high fabrication costs significantly limit their applications. Herein, inspired by the stratum spinosum of human skin, we have fabricated a highly sensitive, flexible, and stretchable porous sponge pressure sensor via an extremely simple process. It mimics the principle of human skin and can sense pressure and tensile forces. We replaced the traditional metal electrodes and fabricated flexible, stretchable bio-inspired electrodes. The spiny layer structure on the electrode surface interacts with the porous sponge, resulting in a synergistic effect of the dual-sensing mechanism. This endows the sensor with high sensitivity (4.04 kPa⁻¹) and a wide monitoring range (56 Pa–11.2 kPa), along with good stretchability, enabling it to stretch and rebound within the range of 0–100%. Finally, we demonstrated its applications in human motion health monitoring and pressure sensing, indicating its broad potential for use in human health monitoring and providing a new strategy for the research of flexible wearable sensors.