An extrusion printed capacitively interrogated DC electric field sensor

This paper presents a novel high voltage DC electric field sensor constructed upon a polyimide substrate utilizing extrusion printing of silver conductive ink. The sensor consists of an electrostatically deflected printed electrode suspended by meandering polyimide springs. In the presence of a DC electric field, the electrode is displaced and a parallel electrode capacitively interrogates this displacement. The sensor is simple, low cost, and easy to manufacture, requiring virtually zero interaction with a cleanroom. Results showed that the printed sensor is successful in detecting various electric field intensities up to 250 kV/m. The sensor has a resolution of 4.7 kV/m at 5 Hz signal averaging when the interrogating electrode is placed initially ~185 μm away from the suspended electrode.