Wide range pressure sensor construction based on tension-compression conversion and gradient stiffness design strategy

Pressure sensors still face a great challenge to combine wide pressure range and high sensitivity into a sensor. Herein, we designed a tension–compression conversion structure and introduced a stiffness gradient design strategy to fabricate pressure sensors. This tension–compression conversion mechanism can convert the sensing performance of two–dimensional (2D) stretchable materials into the compressive sensing performance of devices, thus providing rich designability for sensors. The stacking of multilayer sawtooth structures allows the sensors to perceive pressure with high sensitivity (1.4 N⁻¹ or 0.2 kPa⁻¹) and provide linear sensing over a very wide pressure range (0.005–45.6 N or 0.035–316.7 kPa). Moreover, due to the open structure of the device, the sensor has the ability to work stably in underwater environments. This method of designing pressure sensing devices with two–dimensional stretchable strain sensors as sensing units will provide new ideas for the design of future sensors.