Nanocomposite rubber elastomer with piezoresistive detection for flexible tactile sense application

This work presents flexible tactile sensor using piezoresistive nanocomposite rubber elastomers (C-PDMS): Carbon-black (C) powders filled into polymethylsiloxane (PDMS) using solvent-wetting methods with n-Hexane to produce well-dispersed conductive polymeric nanocomposites. The C-PDMS nanocomposites are utilized to measure resistance changes. In application, the C-PDMS is casted and stacked into PDMS substrate and gold films deposited with 3-mercaptopropyltrimethoxysilane (MPTMS) adhesion layers as bond pads to implement the flexible polymer-based devices. Typical normal load tests show resistance changes of C-PDMS piezoresistors on flat surface are ranging 2.92%~4.45% (ΔR/R
₀
/mN). Moreover, resistance changes of C-PDMS piezoresistors on curved surface are ranging 0.92%~0.98% (ΔR/R
₀
/mN).