Study on the influence generated by the assembly model of the elastomeric substrate on the response of a flexible piezoresistive sensor
Florian Pistritu1,2, Marin Gheorghe3, Marian Ion1, Marian Vladescu2, Paul Schiopu2, Emmanouel Koudoumas1 , Octavian Narcis Ionescu1*
1 National Institute For Research And Development In Microtechnologies - IMT Bucharest
2 Doctoral School of Electronics, Telecommunications and Information Technology, University Politehnica of Bucharest, 061071 Bucharest, Romania.
3 NANOM MEMS SRL, Strada George Cosbuc 9, Rasnov, 505400 Brașov, Romania
Abstract:
This study investigates the influence of the elastomeric substrate on the behavior of the flexible pressure sensor fabricated by screen-printing. The flexible pressure sensor is based on a meandering resistor, which was printed on several flexible substrates, assembled together with an elastomeric PDMS substrate. The results indicate that the most effective option for achieving linearity of response is to print the meander resistor on a flexible Kapton substrate. For the elastomeric substrate and the flexible substrate on which the meander resistor was deposited, three assembly models were tested. Model I had the resistive film placed on top of the elastomeric substrate with the micropyramidal structure oriented with the tip up; Model II had the resistive film placed above the elastomeric substrate with the micropyramidal structure oriented with the tip down; Model III had the resistive film placed on top of an elastomeric substrate of the paired pyramid type - interlocked structure. The results indicate that from the point of view of the elastomeric substrate, the optimal combination is with assembly Models II and III. Cyclic tests demonstrate nearly identical response for these two last assembly model variants. The optimization brought an improvement in the response to low compression pressure, for tests performed up to 50N/cm2.
Keywords: Flexible pressure sensor; Meandering resistor; Screen-printing; PDMS substrate.
Acknowledgments: IMT’s contribution was partially supported by the Romanian Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digitalisation through the μNanoEl, Cod: 23 07 core Programme and partially supported by PNRR/2022/C9/MCID/I8 CF23/14 11 2022 contract 760101/23.05.2023 financed by the Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digitalization in “Development of a program to attract highly specialized human resources from abroad in research, development, and innovation activities” within the – PNRR-IIIC9-2022 - I8 PNRR/2022/Component 9/investment 8.
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