SiO₂ Nanoparticles Incorporated Poly(Vinylidene) Fluoride Composite for Efficient Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting and Dual‐Mode Sensing

Abstract

Flexible electronic skins (e‐skins) have a wide range of applications in health monitoring, human–machine interfaces, and robotics. Herein, a novel architecture of e‐skins with a combination of multimode measurement and low‐cost implementation is proposed. A single electronic skin layer is used to integrate both the pressure and temperature sensing properties. An e‐skin membrane is first developed with poly(vinylidene) fluoride incorporated with silicon dioxide nanoparticles. When combined with electrodes, this simple architecture allows the implementation of multimode pressure and temperature sensing. This e‐skin exhibits excellent pressure sensitivity with a response time of 1.6 ms. This sensing performance can be attributed to the uniform distribution of the embedded nanoparticles, leading to an enhancement of the electroactive β phase. This e‐skin generates a voltage, from the finger movements, that can be used to detect precisely the minute changes of the finger movement. This electronic skin demonstrates the detection of a linear range of temperature which can be attributed to the phonon‐assisted hopping mechanism. A 4 × 4 pressure sensing array is demonstrated, which is able to map the inserted pressure as well as temperature stimuli. Thus, this study provides a new conceptual design for the next‐generation green electronic skins.