Pulsed laser-assisted direct fabrication of MoxW1-xS2 alloy-based flexible strain sensors with superior performance for high-temperature applications

• Published in: Microsystems & nanoengineering Vol. 11; no. 1; pp. 161 - 12
• Main Authors: Wang, Kexin, Wang, Hanxin, Zhang, Xiaoshan, Li, Yingzhe, Zhou, Yilin, Xu, Manzhang, Li, Weiwei, Zheng, Lu, Wang, Xuewen, Huang, Wei
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 19.08.2025; Springer Nature B.V; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 639/166/987; 639/925/357/995; Alloys; Controllability; Engineering; Environmental monitoring; Flexible components; High temperature; Indium; Lasers; Photolithography; Physical properties; Pulsed lasers; Sensitivity; Sensors; Signal detection; Stability; Structural design; Temperature; Temperature tolerance; Wearable technology; Writing
• ISSN: 2055-7434; 2096-1030; 2055-7434
• DOI: 10.1038/s41378-025-01014-1

Flexible strain sensors with high sensitivity and stability at high temperatures are significantly desirable for their accurate and long-term signal detection in wearable devices, environment monitoring, and aerospace electronics. Despite the considerable efforts in materials development and structural design, it remains a challenge to develop highly sensitive, flexible strain sensors operating at high temperatures due to the trade-off between sensitivity and stability for the representative sensing materials. Herein, we develop a high-temperature flexible sensor using Mo x W 1-x S 2 alloy films. A pulsed laser is introduced to directly synthesize Mo x W 1-x S 2 patterns with controllable compositions and physical parameters, enabling the realization of flexible sensors without photolithography or transfer procedures. The resultant flexible sensors exhibit a high gauge factor of 97.4, a low strain detection of 4.9 με, and strong tolerance to a temperature of 500 °C. Owing to its superior performance, we develop a wireless acoustic recognition system to distinguish tiny strain signals of tuning forks with a vibration frequency up to 128 Hz under extreme temperature conditions. The laser method for the direct fabrication of Mo x W 1-x S 2 alloy-based flexible sensors holds great potential in the precise detection of strain signals from complex structures at high temperatures.