Carbon nanomaterials based films for strain sensing application - a review

Strain sensors have been increasingly pervasive in modern life, owing to their ability to detect, respond and convert mechanical motion into an electrical signal, which can be measured in terms of electrical resistance. Novel strain sensing applications have broadened the technology scope and allow us to monitor the changes in the surroundings in distinctive ways we could barely imagine. In recent years, the development of carbon nanomaterials (CNMs) based films for sensing applications has been growing at an astounding pace, owing to their outstanding electrical and mechanical properties. Specifically, the fabrication of CNMs-based films provide groundbreaking approaches for the realization of highly flexible and sensitive strain sensors. In fact, strain sensors based on carbon nanomaterials (CNMs) (e.g., carbon nanotubes, graphene, carbon black, carbon nanofibers) can overcome the limitations of conventional metallic strain gauges, such as low sensitivity (GF ∼ 2), poor stretchability (ε