Inkjet Printed 2D-Crystal Based Strain Gauges on Paper

TL;DR

This paper explores inkjet printing of 2D material-based strain gauges on paper, demonstrating high sensitivity and potential for flexible, biocompatible sensors with tunable performance based on printing parameters.

Contribution

It introduces a novel inkjet printing method for fabricating highly sensitive 2D material strain gauges on paper substrates, including preliminary heterostructure sensors.

Findings

Gauge Factor up to 125 achieved

Sensitivity exceeds 20% at small strains

Performance depends on printing parameters

Abstract

We present an investigation of inkjet printed strain gauges based on two-dimensional (2D) materials. The technology leverages water-based and biocompatible inks to fabricate strain measurement devices on flexible substrates such as paper. We demonstrate that the device performance and sensitivity are strongly dependent on the printing parameter (i.e., drop- spacing, number of printing passes, etc.). We show that values of the Gauge Factor up to 125 can be obtained, with large sensitivity (>20%) even when small strains (0.3%) are applied. Furthermore, we provide preliminary examples of heterostructure-based strain sensors, enabled by the inkjet printing technology.