Towards Poly(vinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene-chlorotrifluoroethylene)-Based Soft Actuators: Films and Electrospun Aligned Nanofiber Mats

Eu3+-Doped Electrospun Polyvinylidene Fluoride-Hexafluoropropylene/Graphene Oxide Multilayer Composite Nanofiber for the Fabrication of Flexible Pressure Sensors

The development of flexible materials with higher piezoelectric properties and electrostrictive response is of great significance in many applications such as wearable functional devices, flexible sensors, and actuators. In this study, we report an efficient fabrication strategy to construct a highly sensitive (0.72 kPa^-1), red light-emitting flexible pressure sensor using electrospun Eu³⁺-doped polyvinylidene fluoride-hexafluoropropylene/graphene oxide composite nanofibers using a layer-by-layer technology. The high β-phase concentration (96.3%) was achieved from the Eu³⁺-doped P(VDF-HFP)/GO nanofibers, leading to a high piezoelectricity of the composite nanofibers. We observed that a pressure sensor is enabled to generate an output voltage of 4.5 V. Furthermore, Eu³⁺-doped P(VDF-HFP)/GO composite nanofiber-based pressure sensors can also be used as an actuator as it has a good electrostrictive effect. At the same time, the nanofiber membrane has excellent ferroelectric properties and good fluorescence properties. These results indicate that this material has great application potential in the fields of photoluminescent fabrics, flexible sensors, soft actuators, and energy storage devices.