Research progress in flexible wearable electronic sensors

Abstract

With the development of intelligent terminals, wearable electronic devices show a great market prospect. As one core component of the wearable electronic device, the sensor will exert a significant influence on the design and function of the wearable electronic device in the future. Compared with the traditional electrical sensors, flexible wearable sensors have the advantages of being light, thin, portable, highly integrated and electrically excellent. It has become one of the most popular electronic sensors. This review focused on recent research advances of flexible wearable sensors, including signal transduction mechanisms, general materials, manufacture processes and recent applications. Piezoresistivity, capacitance and piezoelectricity are three traditional signal transduction mechanism. For accessing the dynamic pressure in real time and developing stretchable energy harvesting devices, sensors based on the mechanoluminescent mechanism and triboelectric mechanism are promising. Common materials used in flexible wearable electronic sensors, such as flexible substrates, metals, inorganic semiconductors, organics and carbons, are also introduced. In addition to the continuously mapping function, wearable sensors also have the practical and potential applications, which focused on the temperature and pulse detection, the facial expression recognition and the motion monitoring. Finally, the challenges and future development of flexible wearable sensors are presented.