Performance Analysis of Wearable Pressure Sensor Based on Structural Properties of Zinc Oxide Nanostructures Grown on Fabric

The growth of Zinc Oxide (ZnO) nanostructures on the fabric substrate using simple hydrothermal technique and its application as textile pressure sensor is reported in this paper. Integrating the advantages of flexibility, breathability, low-cost and facile integration, textile pressure sensors finds prospective application in human-machine interaction and physiological monitoring of human movements. The proposed sensor works on the principle of piezoelectricity with ZnO being the active semiconducting piezoelectric material and conductive fabric as electrodes. The morphological and structural characterization of ZnO grown on the fabric has been carried out to evaluate the performance of the sensor. The growth of ZnO using seed layer and without seed layer on woven and non-woven fabric substrates were examined in detail. The comparative analysis is carried out under each condition considering the growth duration. Measurements on the fabricated pressure sensor were performed to validate the electromechanical properties of the developed ZnO nanostructures. The sensor that exhibits better sensitivity with wide pressure sensing range is chosen over the others to develop the pressure sensor for wearable applications.