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Flexible and Stretchable Electronic Sensors
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Flexible and Stretchable Electronic Sensors

A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Physical Sensors".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2019) | Viewed by 39867

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Niko Münzenrieder

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Sensor Technology Research Centre, School of Engineering and Informatics, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QT, UK
Interests: development, fabrication, and characterization of deformable thin-film devices on plastic substrates; innovative fabrication processes and flexible analog sensor systems
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Luisa Petti

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Sensing Technologies Laboratory, Free University of Bolzano-Bozen, 39100 Bozen-Bolzano, Italy
Interests: design, fabrication and characterization of flexible and printable sensors; energy harvesters, and thin-film devices and circuits
Dr. Giuseppe Cantarella

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Sensing Technologies Laboratory, Free University of Bolzano, 39100 Bozen-Bolzano, Italy
Interests: the design, fabrication, and characterization of flexible and printed sensors, circuits, and systems

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The growing demand for truly unobtrusive electronics is driven by the need for imperceptible monitoring systems, cost-effective consumer products, smart electronic textiles, and biocompatible healthcare sensors.

The enabling technologies for such applications are active and passive electronic building blocks, which can withstand mechanical strain. These include, without being limited to, organic and inorganic thin-film sensors and circuits fabricated on flexible and stretchable large-area plastic substrates.

This Special Issue invites original manuscripts as well as review papers, highlighting recent advances in materials and process development, characterization, and application of bendable, stretchable as well as conformable electronic devices, such as:

  • Plastic substrates and mechanical properties of flexible devices
  • Organic, oxide, and 2D semiconductors
  • Flexible thin-film transistors and circuits
  • Epidermal, biocompatible, and transient electronics
  • Integration technologies and electronic textiles
  • Low-temperature, large-area and additive processing
  • Optical and sensoric systems

Dr. Niko Münzenrieder
Dr. Luisa Petti
Dr. Giuseppe Cantarella
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sensors is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Organic electronics
  • Oxide electronics
  • Thin-film technology
  • Polymer electronics
  • 2D materials
  • Biocompatible and imperceptible electronics
  • Plastic substrates
  • Conditioning electronics
  • Transient electronics
  • Large-area and low temperature fabrication
  • Mechanical properties and influence of strain
  • Lab on chip
  • Smart textiles
  • Epidermal electronics
  • Stretchable electronics

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

13 pages, 1125 KiB  
Article
Textile Electrocardiogram (ECG) Electrodes for Wearable Health Monitoring
by Katya Arquilla, Andrea K. Webb and Allison P. Anderson
Sensors 2020, 20(4), 1013; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s20041013 - 13 Feb 2020
Cited by 89 | Viewed by 10506
Abstract
Wearable health-monitoring systems should be comfortable, non-stigmatizing, and able to achieve high data quality. Smart textiles with electronic elements integrated directly into fabrics offer a way to embed sensors into clothing seamlessly to serve these purposes. In this work, we demonstrate the feasibility [...] Read more.
Wearable health-monitoring systems should be comfortable, non-stigmatizing, and able to achieve high data quality. Smart textiles with electronic elements integrated directly into fabrics offer a way to embed sensors into clothing seamlessly to serve these purposes. In this work, we demonstrate the feasibility of electrocardiogram (ECG) monitoring with sewn textile electrodes instead of traditional gel electrodes in a 3-lead, chest-mounted configuration. The textile electrodes are sewn with silver-coated thread in an overlapping zig zag pattern into an inextensible fabric. Sensor validation included ECG monitoring and comfort surveys with human subjects, stretch testing, and wash cycling. The electrodes were tested with the BIOPAC MP160 ECG data acquisition module. Sensors were placed on 8 subjects (5 males and 3 females) with double-sided tape. To detect differences in R peak detectability between traditional and sewn sensors, effect size was set at 10% of a sample mean for heart rate (HR) and R-R interval. Paired student’s t-tests were run between adhesive and sewn electrode data for R-R interval and average HR, and a Wilcoxon signed-rank test was run for comfort. No statistically significant difference was found between the traditional and textile electrodes (R-R interval: t = 1.43, p > 0.1; HR: t = −0.70, p > 0.5; comfort: V = 15, p > 0.5). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Flexible and Stretchable Electronic Sensors)
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10 pages, 1683 KiB  
Article
PVDF-TrFE-Based Stretchable Contact and Non-Contact Temperature Sensor for E-Skin Application
by Bastien Marchiori, Simon Regal, Yanid Arango, Roger Delattre, Sylvain Blayac and Marc Ramuz
Sensors 2020, 20(3), 623; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s20030623 - 22 Jan 2020
Cited by 24 | Viewed by 5553
Abstract
Development of stretchable electronics has been driven by key applications such as electronics skin for robotic or prosthetic. Mimicking skin functionalities imposes at a minimal level: stretchability, pressure, and temperature sensing capabilities. While the research on pressure sensors for artificial skin is extensive, [...] Read more.
Development of stretchable electronics has been driven by key applications such as electronics skin for robotic or prosthetic. Mimicking skin functionalities imposes at a minimal level: stretchability, pressure, and temperature sensing capabilities. While the research on pressure sensors for artificial skin is extensive, stretchable temperature sensors remain less explored. In this work, a stretchable temperature and infrared sensor has been developed on a polydimethylsiloxane substrate. The sensor is based on poly(vinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene) (PVDF-TrFE) as a pyroelectric material. This material is sandwiched between two electrodes. The first one consists of aluminium serpentines, covered by gold in order to get electrical contact and maximum stretchability. The second one is based on poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) that has shown good electrical compatibility with PVDF-TrFE and provides the stretchability of the top electrode. Without poling the PVDF-TrFE, sensor has shown a sensitivity of around 7 pF.°C−1 up to 35% strain without any change in its behaviour. Then, taking advantage on infrared absorption of PEDOT:PSS, a poled device has shown a pyroelectric peak of 13 mV to an infrared illumination of 5 mW at 830 nm. This stretchable device valuably allows an electronic skin (e-skin) use for contact and more importantly non-contact thermal sensing. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Flexible and Stretchable Electronic Sensors)
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11 pages, 3060 KiB  
Article
Ultra-Sensitive Flexible Pressure Sensor Based on Microstructured Electrode
by Mengmeng Li, Jiaming Liang, Xudong Wang and Min Zhang
Sensors 2020, 20(2), 371; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s20020371 - 09 Jan 2020
Cited by 65 | Viewed by 9165
Abstract
Flexible pressure sensors with a high sensitivity in the lower zone of a subtle-pressure regime has shown great potential in the fields of electronic skin, human–computer interaction, wearable devices, intelligent prosthesis, and medical health. Adding microstructures on the dielectric layer on a capacitive [...] Read more.
Flexible pressure sensors with a high sensitivity in the lower zone of a subtle-pressure regime has shown great potential in the fields of electronic skin, human–computer interaction, wearable devices, intelligent prosthesis, and medical health. Adding microstructures on the dielectric layer on a capacitive pressure sensor has become a common and effective approach to enhance the performance of flexible pressure sensors. Here, we propose a method to further dramatically increase the sensitivity by adding elastic pyramidal microstructures on one side of the electrode and using a thin layer of a dielectric in a capacitive sensor. The sensitivity of the proposed device has been improved from 3.1 to 70.6 kPa−1 compared to capacitive sensors having pyramidal microstructures in the same dimension on the dielectric layer. Moreover, a detection limit of 1 Pa was achieved. The finite element analysis performed based on electromechanical sequential coupling simulation for hyperelastic materials indicates that the microstructures on electrode are critical to achieve high sensitivity. The influence of the duty ratio of the micro-pyramids on the sensitivity of the sensor is analyzed by both simulation and experiment. The durability and robustness of the device was also demonstrated by pressure testing for 2000 cycles. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Flexible and Stretchable Electronic Sensors)
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14 pages, 10982 KiB  
Article
Flexible Temperature Sensor Integration into E-Textiles Using Different Industrial Yarn Fabrication Processes
by Pasindu Lugoda, Julio C. Costa, Carlos Oliveira, Leonardo A. Garcia-Garcia, Sanjula D. Wickramasinghe, Arash Pouryazdan, Daniel Roggen, Tilak Dias and Niko Münzenrieder
Sensors 2020, 20(1), 73; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s20010073 - 21 Dec 2019
Cited by 50 | Viewed by 9956
Abstract
Textiles enhanced with thin-film flexible sensors are well-suited for unobtrusive monitoring of skin parameters due to the sensors’ high conformability. These sensors can be damaged if they are attached to the surface of the textile, also affecting the textiles’ aesthetics and feel. We [...] Read more.
Textiles enhanced with thin-film flexible sensors are well-suited for unobtrusive monitoring of skin parameters due to the sensors’ high conformability. These sensors can be damaged if they are attached to the surface of the textile, also affecting the textiles’ aesthetics and feel. We investigate the effect of embedding flexible temperature sensors within textile yarns, which adds a layer of protection to the sensor. Industrial yarn manufacturing techniques including knit braiding, braiding, and double covering were utilised to identify an appropriate incorporation technique. The thermal time constants recorded by all three sensing yarns was <10 s. Simultaneously, effective sensitivity only decreased by a maximum of 14% compared to the uncovered sensor. This is due to the sensor being positioned within the yarn instead of being in direct contact with the measured surface. These sensor yarns were not affected by bending and produced repeatable measurements. The double covering method was observed to have the least impact on the sensors’ performance due to the yarn’s smaller dimensions. Finally, a sensing yarn was incorporated in an armband and used to measure changes in skin temperature. The demonstrated textile integration techniques for flexible sensors using industrial yarn manufacturing processes enable large-scale smart textile fabrication. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Flexible and Stretchable Electronic Sensors)
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12 pages, 3996 KiB  
Article
Multi-Site Photoplethysmographic and Electrocardiographic System for Arterial Stiffness and Cardiovascular Status Assessment
by David Perpetuini, Antonio Maria Chiarelli, Lidia Maddiona, Sergio Rinella, Francesco Bianco, Valentina Bucciarelli, Sabina Gallina, Vincenzo Perciavalle, Vincenzo Vinciguerra, Arcangelo Merla and Giorgio Fallica
Sensors 2019, 19(24), 5570; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/s19245570 - 17 Dec 2019
Cited by 23 | Viewed by 3940
Abstract
The development and validation of a system for multi-site photoplethysmography (PPG) and electrocardiography (ECG) is presented. The system could acquire signals from 8 PPG probes and 10 ECG leads. Each PPG probe was constituted of a light-emitting diode (LED) source at a wavelength [...] Read more.
The development and validation of a system for multi-site photoplethysmography (PPG) and electrocardiography (ECG) is presented. The system could acquire signals from 8 PPG probes and 10 ECG leads. Each PPG probe was constituted of a light-emitting diode (LED) source at a wavelength of 940 nm and a silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) detector, located in a back-reflection recording configuration. In order to ensure proper optode-to-skin coupling, the probe was equipped with insufflating cuffs. The high number of PPG probes allowed us to simultaneously acquire signals from multiple body locations. The ECG provided a reference for single-pulse PPG evaluation and averaging, allowing the extraction of indices of cardiovascular status with a high signal-to-noise ratio. Firstly, the system was characterized on optical phantoms. Furthermore, in vivo validation was performed by estimating the brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity (baPWV), a metric associated with cardiovascular status. The validation was performed on healthy volunteers to assess the baPWV intra- and extra-operator repeatability and its association with age. Finally, the baPWV, evaluated via the developed instrumentation, was compared to that estimated with a commercial system used in clinical practice (Enverdis Vascular Explorer). The validation demonstrated the system’s reliability and its effectiveness in assessing the cardiovascular status in arterial ageing. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Flexible and Stretchable Electronic Sensors)
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