Self-powered artificial electronic skin for high-resolution pressure sensing

Electronic skin (e-skin) comprises a network of tactile sensors, which has broad application prospects in prosthetics, advanced robotics and continuous health monitoring. Here, a self-powered artificial e-skin is fabricated in a simple and cost-effective method for high resolution pressure sensing. No external power supply is needed for the e-skin owing to the triboelectric mechanism. The response time of pressure sensing is approximately 68 ms and the sensitivity is 0.055 nA K Pa−1. With excellent flexibility, the device can be adhered on most curved surfaces for pressure sensing purposes. The fabricated e-skin with resolution as high as 127×127 dpi is capable of mapping the 2D tactile trajectory of a tip. The resolution can proceed to be improved with the enhancement of the pixel density. Furthermore, the unique construction brings about a significant reduction in the number of the test channels from N×N to 2×N, which greatly decreases the measurement costs. This work offers an effective step for e-skin, with superiorities of self-powered, high resolution, simple fabrication and low-cost.