A laser ablated graphene-based flexible self-powered pressure sensor for human gestures and finger pulse monitoring

Flexible triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs)-based pressure sensors are very essential for the wide-range applications, comprising wearable healthcare systems, intuitive human-device interfaces, electronic-skin (e-skin), and artificial intelligence. Most of conventional fabrication methods used to produce high-performance TENGs involve plasma treatment, photolithography, printing, and electro-deposition. However, these fabrication techniques are expensive, multi-step, time-consuming and not suitable for mass production, which are the main barriers for efficient and cost-effective commercialization of TENGs. Here, we established a highly reliable scheme for the fabrication of a novel eco-friendly, low cost, and TENG-based pressure sensor (TEPS) designed for usage in self-powered-human gesture detection (SP-HGD) likewise wearable healthcare applications. The sensors with microstructured electrodes performed well with high sensitivity (7.697 kPa⁻¹), a lower limit of detection (~ 1 Pa), faster response time (< 9.9 ms), and highly stable over > 4, 000 compression–releasing cycles. The proposed method is suitable for the adaptable fabrication of TEPS at an extremely low cost with possible applications in self-powered systems, especially e-skin and healthcare applications.