A Vertically Stacked Dual-Parameter Sensor for Simultaneous Temperature and Pressure Detection

Abstract

The ability of electronic skin to detect and distinguish multiple tactile stimuli is important to properly mimic human skin. Although a few dual-parameter sensors have recently been designed to identify the most common tactile stimuli such as pressure and heat, it remains a difficult task to develop a dual-parameter sensor that is free from signal interference, easy to prepare, and signal readout, and requires no bias voltage. Here, we develop a simple but effective vertical stacking of sensing components strategy for high-performance dual-parameter sensing systems, in which multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs)/textile and PEDOT:PSS/photopaper were designed as pressure- and thermal-sensitive components, and a layer of double-sided tape with a thickness of <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$200\,\mu \text{m}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> is sandwiched between two sensitive components for electrical and thermal isolation. The dual-parameter sensor exhibits good sensing performance in terms of sensitivity, response time, detection range, and stability for both pressure and temperature detection. More importantly, the tactile inputs of pressure and temperature can be distinguished without signal decoupling. The preparation of the dual-parameter sensor is simple and low cost, and its requirements for the readout device are as low as a single-chip microcomputer. This work provides a promising prototype for multiparameters e-skin, which has great potential for applications in robot applications, human–computer interaction, and intelligent wearable devices.