An innovative copper-PDMS piezoresistive composite for flexible tactile sensor

A composite material based on multi branch spiky copper particles dispersed into silicone matrix was prepared as functional material for piezoresistive tactile sensor. The material showed giant variation of electrical resistance under the application of both compressive and tensile forces with a sensitivity tunable with variation on the process parameter as filler amount and sample thickness. A flexible matrix tactile sensor was realized with a simple and fast combination of soft lithography and hot-embossing techniques using copper metalized polyimide films as electrodes.