High sensitivity and broad detection range flexible capacitive pressure sensor based on rGO cotton fiber for human motion detection

Abstract Recently, flexible pressure sensors have attracted considerable interest in electronic skins, wearable devices, intelligent robots and biomedical diagnostics. However, the design of high sensitivity flexible pressure sensors often relies on expensive materials and complex process technology, which greatly limit their popularity and applications. Even worse, chemical-based sensors are poorly biocompatible and harmful to the environment. Here, we developed a flexible capacitive pressure sensor based on reduced graphene oxide cotton fiber by a simple and low-cost preparation process. The environmentally friendly sensor exhibited a comprehensive performance with not only ultra-high sensitivity (up to 15.84 kPa ⁻¹ ) and a broad sensing range (0–500 kPa), but also excellent repeatability (over 400 cycles), low hysteresis (⩽11.6%), low detection limit (<0.1 kPa) and wide frequency availability (sensitivity from 19.71 to 11.24 kPa ⁻¹ , frequency from 100 Hz to 10 kHz). Based on its superior performance, the proposed sensor can detect various external stimuli (vertical stress, bending and airflow) and has been successfully applied for facial expression recognition, breathing detection, joint movement and walking detection, showing great potential for application in artificial electronic skin and wearable healthcare devices.