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  • Hierarchically Structured Vertical Gold Nanowire Array-Based Wearable Pressure Sensors for Wireless Health Monitoring.

Hierarchically Structured Vertical Gold Nanowire Array-Based Wearable Pressure Sensors for Wireless Health Monitoring.

ACS applied materials & interfaces (2019-07-20)
Bowen Zhu, Yunzhi Ling, Lim Wei Yap, Mingjie Yang, Fenge Lin, Shu Gong, Yan Wang, Tiance An, Yunmeng Zhao, Wenlong Cheng
ABSTRACT

We have recently demonstrated that vertically aligned gold nanowires (v-AuNWs) are outstanding material candidates for wearable biomedical sensors toward real-time and noninvasive health monitoring because of their excellent tunable electrical conductivity, biocompatibility, chemical inertness, and wide electrochemical window. Here, we show that v-AuNWs could also be used to design a high-performance wearable pressure sensor when combined with rational structural engineering such as pyramid microarray-based hierarchical structures. The as-fabricated pressure sensor featured a low operation voltage of 0.1 V, high sensitivity in a low-pressure regime, a fast response time of <10 ms, and high durability with stable signals for the 10 000 cycling test. In conjunction with printed electrode arrays, we could generate a multiaxial map for spatial pressure detection. Furthermore, our flexible pressure sensor could be seamlessly connected with a Bluetooth low-energy module to detect high-quality artery pulses in a wireless manner. Our solution-based gold coating strategy offers the benefit of conformal coating of nanowires onto three-dimensional microstructured elastomeric substrates under ambient conditions, indicating promising applications in next-generation wearable biodiagnostics.