Stretching the future: Role of elastomers in sensor innovations

IF 4.9 3区工程技术 Q2 ENGINEERING, ELECTRICAL & ELECTRONIC

Sensors and Actuators A-physical Pub Date : 2025-09-12 DOI:10.1016/j.sna.2025.117056

Aparna Jayan , Athira Sony , Reshma Varghese , Mathew Sunil , E.J. Jelmy , Jayalatha Gopalakrishnan , Honey John , Suresh C. Pillai , Abhitha K

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Flexible sensors offer several advantages, particularly in the emerging realm of wearable electronics, including adaptability to irregular surfaces, light weight, and conformability. Among the various flexible substrates suitable for fabricating sensors, elastomers stand out as convincing choices, owing to their capacity to uphold mechanical integrity while possessing soft and compliant characteristics. This review summarizes and discusses different types and advancements in wearable flexible sensors fabricated of elastomers, especially emphasising piezoresistive, self-healing, capacitive, piezoelectric, triboelectric, temperature, humidity, electrochemical, and ionic sensors. A comparative analysis of studies on flexible sensors reported in this review highlights key factors such as the materials used, sensor type, durability, response time, sensitivity, gauge factor and application suitability. Finally, future perspectives are also included in this review, focusing on the challenges in devising wearable sensors with high sensitivity and exploring the potential of assimilating artificial intelligence and IoT into wearable sensor fabrication. The review concludes that the ongoing advancements in emerging materials, innovative manufacturing methods, intelligent sensing technologies, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things (IoT), edge computing, and neuromorphic computing are poised to amplify the performance and capabilities of flexible sensors. This review promises to enlighten the readers on the merits of flexible sensors over rigid ones and the advantages of elastomers over other substrates in fabricating flexible wearables. The readers will gain an understanding of the basic mechanism of operation of different flexible sensors and be made aware of the relevant applications of elastomeric sensors in detail. In addition, they will gather insights on the challenges and the future outlook in the realm of elastomeric wearables.

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延伸未来：弹性体在传感器创新中的作用

柔性传感器有几个优点，特别是在新兴的可穿戴电子产品领域，包括对不规则表面的适应性、重量轻和一致性。在各种适合制造传感器的柔性基板中，弹性体作为令人信服的选择脱颖而出，因为它们具有保持机械完整性的能力，同时具有柔软和柔顺的特性。本文综述并讨论了弹性体可穿戴柔性传感器的不同类型和进展，重点介绍了压阻式、自愈式、电容式、压电式、摩擦电式、温度、湿度、电化学和离子传感器。本文对柔性传感器的研究进行了比较分析，强调了使用的材料、传感器类型、耐久性、响应时间、灵敏度、测量因子和应用适用性等关键因素。最后，本文还展望了未来，重点关注设计高灵敏度可穿戴传感器所面临的挑战，并探索将人工智能和物联网融入可穿戴传感器制造的潜力。该综述的结论是，新兴材料、创新制造方法、智能传感技术、人工智能、物联网（IoT）、边缘计算和神经形态计算等领域的持续进步将扩大柔性传感器的性能和能力。这篇综述有望让读者了解柔性传感器相对于刚性传感器的优点，以及在制造柔性可穿戴设备时弹性体相对于其他基板的优势。读者将了解不同柔性传感器的基本工作原理，并详细了解弹性传感器的相关应用。此外，他们还将收集有关弹性可穿戴设备领域的挑战和未来前景的见解。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Sensors and Actuators A-physical 工程技术-工程：电子与电气

CiteScore

8.10

自引率

6.50%

发文量

630

审稿时长

49 days

期刊介绍： Sensors and Actuators A: Physical brings together multidisciplinary interests in one journal entirely devoted to disseminating information on all aspects of research and development of solid-state devices for transducing physical signals. Sensors and Actuators A: Physical regularly publishes original papers, letters to the Editors and from time to time invited review articles within the following device areas: • Fundamentals and Physics, such as: classification of effects, physical effects, measurement theory, modelling of sensors, measurement standards, measurement errors, units and constants, time and frequency measurement. Modeling papers should bring new modeling techniques to the field and be supported by experimental results. • Materials and their Processing, such as: piezoelectric materials, polymers, metal oxides, III-V and II-VI semiconductors, thick and thin films, optical glass fibres, amorphous, polycrystalline and monocrystalline silicon. • Optoelectronic sensors, such as: photovoltaic diodes, photoconductors, photodiodes, phototransistors, positron-sensitive photodetectors, optoisolators, photodiode arrays, charge-coupled devices, light-emitting diodes, injection lasers and liquid-crystal displays. • Mechanical sensors, such as: metallic, thin-film and semiconductor strain gauges, diffused silicon pressure sensors, silicon accelerometers, solid-state displacement transducers, piezo junction devices, piezoelectric field-effect transducers (PiFETs), tunnel-diode strain sensors, surface acoustic wave devices, silicon micromechanical switches, solid-state flow meters and electronic flow controllers. Etc...