Self-powered, ultrasensitive, and high-resolution visualized flexible pressure sensor based on color-tunable triboelectrification-induced electroluminescence

With the capability of mapping local pressure information and converting it into human-readable visual optical signals simultaneously, self-powered visualized flexible pressure sensor (SP-VFPS) has aroused a new surge of interest because of its good solution to the wireless communication of human stress/strain sensing. Herein, a new class of SP-VFPS based on micro compression-dependent porous architecture was reported to be capable of enabling color-tunable triboelectrification-induced electroluminescence (TIEL) in response to vertical pressure in real time, exhibiting a rather low detection limit of tribo-pressure at ~ 10 kPa, the high sensitivity (S > 190 kPa−1) within a wide pressure range as well as a rapid response time of below 10 ms. Through the integration of SP-VFPS with a single-electrode triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) matrix, the hybrid sensing system was further developed with multi-functional pressure sensitivity for multi-touch sensing, motion monitoring, and high-resolution (500 µm) eye-detectable spatial pressure mapping by a combination of electrical and optical responses. This SP-VFPS is the first demonstration towards color-tunable TIEL as an all-in-one device for the instantaneous detection of pressure information which may provide new insight into its applications in robots, smart sensor networks, future real-time pressure mapping systems, and human-machine interfaces through wireless optical communication.