Influence of the Humidity on Nanoparticle-Based Resistive Strain Gauges

Lucas Digianantonio (1) , Melanie Gauvin (1) , Thomas Alnasser (1) , David Babonneau (2) , Benoit Viallet (1) , Jérémie Grisolia (1) , G. Viau (1) , Alessandro Coati (3) , Yves Garreau (3, 4) , Laurence Ressier (1)

1 LPCNO - Laboratoire de physique et chimie des nano-objets
2 PPrime [Poitiers] - Institut Pprime [UPR 3346]
3 SSOLEIL - Synchrotron SOLEIL
4 MPQ (UMR_7162) - Laboratoire Matériaux et Phénomènes Quantiques

The strong impact of humidity over the performances of gold colloidal nanoparticle (NP)-based resistive strain gauges is quantified and investigated by coupling electro-mechanical and in situ small-angle X-ray scattering measurements. When the relative humidity increases from 0% to 60%, the electrical resistance at rest of the NP-based sensors increases by 40%, and their sensitivity increases by 50%. This is accompanied by a rise of about 1% to 2% in the center-to-center distance between neighboring NPs and by an increase of the compactness of the NP assembly, possible evidence of a reorganization of the NPs. An encapsulation solution, based on alternating polymer and alumina layers, stabilizes the performances of the NP-based strain gauges for strains up to 0.4%. This approach could be extended to other flexible NP-based devices.

Domaines: Chimie

Lucas Digianantonio, Melanie Gauvin, Thomas Alnasser, David Babonneau, Benoit Viallet, et al.. Influence of the Humidity on Nanoparticle-Based Resistive Strain Gauges. Journal of Physical Chemistry C, 2016, 120 (10), pp.5848-5854. ⟨10.1021/acs.jpcc.6b00822⟩. ⟨hal-02018013⟩