Interlocked architecture strategy for high-performance e-skin toward intelligent perception and photothermal-therapy

Multifunctional electronic skin (e-skin) has gained enormous attention for its promising applications in personal health management, medical rehabilitation and human-machine interaction. However, it is difficult for the reported e-skin to simultaneously have high sensitivity, wide pressure detection range and further timely adjuvant treatment after smart health diagnosis. Inspired by architecture and function of interlocked microridges in human skin, a novel bionic e-skin with interlocked micro-hemispheres between the sensitive layer and interdigitated electrode is designed and fabricated. Thanks to the interlocked micro-hemispheres, conspicuous change of contact resistance, contact area between sensitive layer and interdigitated electrode upon external pressure can be realized. Such bionic e-skin demonstrates appealing sensing performance with a high sensitivity (≈1166.6 kPa⁻¹) and a wide pressure detection range (up to 150 kPa), which can be used for monitoring a wide range of human motion and vibrations caused by sound waves. Moreover, sensitive layer coated with MXene nanosheets has excellent photothermal conversion efficiency (reaching to ∼58 ℃ within 90 s at an irradiation intensity of 100 mW/cm⁻²), enabling the bionic e-skin to be used for smart photothermal-therapy. This work provides a facile method for the preparation of high-performance multifunctional bionic e-skin, which is a quintessence of “functionalized processing” for thermoplastics polymers that can improve sensing performance of e-skin and expand its potential applications.