A nature-inspired hierarchical branching structure pressure sensor with high sensitivity and wide dynamic range for versatile medical wearables

Pressure-sensing capability is essential for flexible electronic devices, which require high sensitivity and a wide detection range to simplify the system. However, the template-based pressure sensor is powerless to detect high pressure due to the rapid deformation saturation of microstructures. Herein, we demonstrated that a nature-inspired hierarchical branching (HB) structure can effectively address this problem. Finite element analysis demonstrates that the HB structure permits a step-by-step mobilization of microstructure deformation, resulting in a dramatically improved sensitivity (up to 2 orders of magnitude) when compared with the traditional monolayer structure. Experiments show that the HB structure enables pressure sensors to have a lower elastic modulus (1/3 of that of monolayer sensors), a high sensitivity of 13.1 kPa⁻¹ (almost 14 times higher than the monolayer sensor), and a wide dynamic range (0–800 kPa, the minimum detection pressure is 1.6 Pa). The maximum frequency that the sensor can detect is 250 Hz. The response/recovery time is 0.675/0.55 ms respectively. Given this performance, the HB sensor enables high-resolution detection of the weak radial artery pulse wave characteristics in different states, indicating its potential to noninvasively reveal cardiovascular status and the effectiveness of related interventions, such as exercise and drug intervention. As a proof of concept, we also verified that the HB sensor can serve as a versatile platform to support diverse applications from low to high pressure.