Highly sensitive integrated flexible tactile sensors with piezoresistive Ge 2 Sb2Te5 thin films

Abstract

Integrated flexible tactile sensors: downsizing for higher performance By reducing feature size to one micron, flexible tactile sensors with high spatial resolution and sensitivity are demonstrated. A collaborative team led by Nian-Xiang Sun from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Northeastern University developed integrated flexible tactile sensors and sensor arrays with high sensitivity and spatial resolution. The sensor’s high sensitivity (e.g. gauge factor of 338) is due to developed piezoresistive Ge2Sb2Te5 thin films. To obtain a high spatial resolution above 12,700 pixels per inch, the sensor’s feature size was reduced to one micron. Sun and co-workers demonstrate the applicability of the integrated flexible tactile sensors for next-generation touch display applications through proof-of-concept 5 × 5 sensor arrays and Ge2Sb2Te5 strain sensors with enhanced performance at smaller size.