Splashing-Assisted Femtosecond Laser-Activated Metal Deposition for Mold- and Mask-Free Fabrication of Robust Microstructured Electrodes for Flexible Pressure Sensors

Flexible pressure sensors play an indispensable role in flexible electronics. Microstructures on flexible electrodes have been proven to be effective in improving the sensitivity of pressure sensors. However, it remains a challenge to develop such microstructured flexible electrodes in a convenient way. Inspired by splashed particles from laser processing, herein, a method for customizing microstructured flexible electrodes by femtosecond laser-activated metal deposition is proposed. It takes advantage of the catalyzing particles scattered during femtosecond laser ablation and is particularly suitable for moldless, maskless, and low-cost fabrication of microstructured metal layers on polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). Robust bonding at the PDMS/Cu interface is evidenced by the scotch tape test and the duration test over 10 000 bending cycles. Benefiting from the firm interface, the developed flexible capacitive pressure sensor with microstructured electrodes presents several conspicuous features, including a sensitivity (0.22 kPa) 73 times higher than the one using flat Cu electrodes, ultralow detection limit (<1 Pa), rapid response/recovery time (4.2/5.3 ms), and excellent stability. Moreover, the proposed method, inheriting the merits of laser direct writing, is capable of fabricating a pressure sensor array in a maskless manner for spatial pressure mapping.