Recent Developments of Nanomaterials and Sensor Performance for Electronic Skin

Abstract: Throughout the research of flexible nanomaterials and sensing technology in recent years, electronic skin has been widely developed as well as applied in many fields. As a bionic flexible tactile sensor, electronic skin can simulate the touching of human skin with external signals as well as collect and detect dynamic information of the physical surface. This paper reviews the flexible substrate materials and electrode nanomaterials of electronic skin. The stable support of the flexible substrate largely determines the mechanical properties of the electronic skin. At the outset, this article introduces the flexible substrate materials commonly used in electronic skins. PDMS, PI, and PET are typical representatives of flexible substrate materials. Then, the nanomaterials used for electrodes are discussed, including one-dimensional and two-dimensional nanomaterials, especially emphasizing the innovation of the sensor performance about the advanced electronic skin along with the use of different nanomaterials under the integrated application background. In addition, these electrode nanomaterials need to be appropriately embedded in flexible substrate materials. The response time, sensitivity, detection limit, response range, and the cycle of electronic skin are selected for comparison. Finally, the opportunities and challenges of electronic skin in nanomaterials and sensing technology are summarized.