Piezoresistive nanocomposite rubber elastomer for stretchable MEMS sensor

Abstract

This paper presents piezoresistive nanocomposite rubber elastomers of 30 wt% carbon black filled into PDMS to produce conductive polymeric composites. The C-PDMS nanocomposite is utilized to measure the fractional changes in electrical resistances (ΔR/R0) as piezoresistors, which was casted and stacked into PDMS substrates with gold films deposited as bond pads to fabricate polymer-based stretchable devices. In the prototype demonstration, the measured resistivity (ρ) of C-PDMS nanocomposites was ∼27.5 (Ω-cm). The sensitivity, under applied force-induced strains of bending, normal force, and uniaxial tensile tests, was ∼0.55%, ∼0.132% (ΔR/R0/mN), and ∼0.097% (ΔR/R0/μm) with the gauge factor (GF) of ∼4.86, respectively.