Prof.Huang Wanxia’s team of the College of Materials Science and Engineering publisheda research paper titled "A Terahertz Meta-Sensor Array for 2D Strain Mapping" in Nature Communications recently. This achievement collaborated with Prof.Cheng Qiang’s team of Southeast University. Sichuan University is the first signatory, Xueguang Lu, a class 2021 PhD student from the School of Materials, is the first author of the paper, and Prof Huang Wanxia is the co-corresponding author.

"Large-scale stretchable strain sensor arrays capable of mapping two-dimensional strain distributions have gained interest for applications as wearable devices and relating to the Internet of Things. However, existing strain sensor arrays are usually unable to achieve accurate directional recognition and experience a trade-off between high sensing resolution and large area detection. Here, based on classical Mie resonance, we report a flexible meta-sensor array that can detect the in-plane direction and magnitude of preloaded strains by referencing a dynamically transmitted terahertz (THz) signal. By building a one-to-one correspondence between the intrinsic electrical/magnetic dipole resonance frequency and the horizontal/perpendicular tension level, arbitrary strain information across the meta-sensor array is accurately detected and quantified using a THz scanning setup. Particularly, with a simple preparation process of micro template-assisted assembly, this meta-sensor array offers ultrahigh sensor density (~11.1 cm−2) and has been seamlessly extended to a record-breaking size (110 × 130 mm2), demonstrating its promise in real-life applications." (Abstract)

Fig. A. Artistic rendering of a meta-sensor array.

This research was funded by the National Key Research and Development Programme of China and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-47474-3