Flexible low-pressure sensors ( <10 kPa) are required in areas as diverse as blood-pressure monitoring, human–computer interactions, robotics, and object detection. For applications, it is essential that these sensors combine flexibility, high sensitivity, robustness, and low production costs. Previous works involve surface micro-patterning, electronic amplification (OFET), and hydrogels. However, these solutions are limited as they involve complex processes, large bias voltages, large energy consumption, or are sensitive to evaporation. Here, we report a major advance to solve the challenge of scalable, efficient and robust e-skin. We present an unconventional capacitive sensor based on composite foam materials filled with conductive carbon black particles. Owing to the elastic buckling of the foam pores, the sensitivity exceeds 35 kPa⁻¹ for pressure <0.2 kPa. These performances are one order of magnitude higher than the ones previously reported. These materials are low-cost, easy to prepare, and display high capacitance values, which are easy to measure using low-cost electronics. These materials pave the road for the implementation of e-skin in commercialized applications.

在血压监测，人机交互，机器人技术和物体检测等领域，都需要灵活的低压传感器（<10 kPa）。对于应用而言，这些传感器必须兼具灵活性，高灵敏度，坚固性和低生产成本，这一点至关重要。先前的工作涉及表面微图案化，电子放大（OFET）和水凝胶。但是，这些解决方案受到限制，因为它们涉及复杂的过程，较大的偏置电压，较大的能耗或对蒸发敏感。在这里，我们报告了一项重大进展，以解决可扩展，高效且健壮的电子皮肤的挑战。我们提出了一种非常规电容式传感器，该传感器基于填充有导电炭黑颗粒的复合泡沫材料。由于泡沫孔的弹性弯曲，灵敏度超过35 kPa压力<0.2 kPa时为^-1。这些性能比以前报道的性能高一个数量级。这些材料价格低廉，易于制备，并且显示出高电容值，而这些电容值很容易使用低成本电子设备进行测量。这些材料为在商业化应用中实现电子皮肤铺平了道路。