The effect of processing parameters on the performance of cotton-fabric-based MEMS fabricated using stamped silver nanoparticles

In this study, silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) were being transferred onto fabric by stamping to produce different conductive regions. The resistive part acts as the transducer of the device using piezoresistive effects. The scope of this project is to investigate the effect of stamping processing parameters to the fabricated textile-based Micro Electro Mechanical System (MEMS). We show that the force applied during stamping procedure and the amount of AgNPs will affect the performance of the sensor. We calculated the gauge factor in order to investigate the sensitivity of the sensor with different processing parameters. We found that there are optimum values for both the applied force, i.e. about 15N, and the applied AgNPs amount, i.e. 0.5 μl, such that the sensitivity of the textile-based MEMS strain sensing is maximum.