Highly sensitive wearable strain sensors using copper nanowires and elastomers

One-dimensional nanomaterials show distinguishing characteristics in optical, electrical, mechanical, and thermal properties. Especially, the noble metal nanowires are good candidates for transparent conductive materials. In this paper, we coated copper nanowires (CuNWs) on PDMS as the flexible substrate and combined the conductive liquid to form a flexible wearable strain sensor. In electrical characterizations, the sensors show high sensitivity and tolerance to mechanical forces during multiple stretching, which are superior than the conventional devices with conducting polymers only. We further demonstrate various applications of the sensor in wearable electronic devices, which indicate good potential of such new devices in wearable electronics.