The sensitivity of capacitive pressure sensors is primarily determined by the modulus of a soft dielectric layer that reversibly deforms to produce an electrical signal. Unfortunately, the mechanical properties of conventional linear networks are constrained such that a lower limit on softness translates to poor capacitive pressure sensor performance. Here, we overcome this paradigm by leveraging the intrinsic “super-soft” characteristic of bottlebrush polymers. A simple light-induced crosslinking strategy is introduced to facilitate device fabrication and parallel plate capacitive pressure sensors constructed with these bottlebrush polymer networks exhibit up to a 53× increase in sensitivity compared to traditional material formulations, e.g., Sylgard 184. This combination of contemporary synthetic chemistry and application-driven materials design accentuates the opportunities available at the intersection of science and engineering.

中文翻译：

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用于触摸感应的超软无溶剂牙刷弹性体†

电容式压力传感器的灵敏度主要取决于可逆变形以产生电信号的软介电层的模量。不幸的是，常规线性网络的机械性能受到限制，以致于柔软度的下限转化为差的电容式压力传感器性能。在这里，我们通过利用洗瓶刷聚合物固有的“超软”特性来克服这种范例。一个简单的光致交联的策略被引入，以促进器件的制造以及与这些瓶刷聚合物网络构造的平行板电容压力传感器显示出高达53×灵敏度的增加相对于传统的材料配方，例如，Sylgard184。当代合成化学与应用驱动材料设计的这种结合突出了科学与工程学交叉领域的机会。