High-Performance Integrated Pressure Sensors via Microstructured Electrodes Coupled With Floating-Gate CNT Transistors

Transistor-integrated flexible pressure sensors have received considerable interest in emerging fields such as humanoid robotics, prosthetics, and implantable electronics. However, existing designs for these integrated sensors often exhibit a trade-off between pressure response and operating voltage, thus significantly limiting their practical applications. In this letter, we report a unique device design of integrated pressure sensors based on deformable microstructured electrodes capacitively coupled with floating-gate carbon nanotube transistors. The microstructured electrodes can dramatically enhance the pressure-introduced electrostatic control of the transistor, enabling a substantial improvement in the transduced pressure response at low operating voltages. With this unique design, we achieve a high pressure response of 105and an ultrahigh sensitivity up to 104kPa-1at a low operating voltage below 3 V, which holds great promise for the development of advanced functionalized flexible electronics.