Berlin 2008 – scientific programme

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DF: Fachverband Dielektrische Festkörper

DF 2: Electric, electromechanical and optical properties I

DF 2.6: Talk

Monday, February 25, 2008, 12:00–12:20, EB 107

Flexible Touch- and Pressure Sensitive Piezo Elastomer Stretch Sensor for Simple Surface Point Location Detection. — •Reinhard Schwödiauer, Christoph Orthwein, Gerda Buchberger, Ingrid Graz, Petr Bathu, and Siegfried Bauer — Soft Matter Physics, Johannes Kepler University, Altenbergerstrasse 69, 4040 Linz, Austria

Mechanical flexibility is a central advantage and an auspicious goal for the branch of macroelectronics, dealing with the development of plastic electronic products and related sensors. In many application fields however, flexibility alone is not sufficient: Examples include technical skin-sensors for robotics or wearable, fabric-integrated large-area sensors. Sensors and actuators in such application fields should be stretchable and not just flexible. Therefore, the development of flexible, touch sensitive sensors is a challenging task in plastic electronics.

We present simple designs for large-area elastomeric touch- and pressure sensors based on cellular polypropylene ferroelectrets in combination with conductive poly(dimethylsilicone). Both the preparation, the morphological characterization as well as the performance of the sensor is discussed. In addition a simple concept is introduced, allowing for spatially localizing single touch events. No complex structured array sensors are required, instead a nonstructured large area ferroelectret is used with electronic elements at the periphery of the device. A simple one-dimensional model is given to elucidate the concept. Experimetal results are used to illustrate the performance of the flexible and stretchable sensor systems.