Qiang Zhang

• Doctor of Engineering
• Professor (Associate) at Taiyuan University of Technology

With the continuous development of electronic technology, sensors are moving toward miniaturization and high precision. This article focuses on the flexible, high‐resolution and miniaturized features of the sensor to design a pressure sensor. This article uses 3D printing technology to create a mold, which is injected with polydimethylsiloxane (PDM...

There is a growing demand for flexible pressure sensors in environmental monitoring and human–robot interaction robotics. A flexible and susceptible sensor can discriminate multidirectional pressure, thus effectively detecting signals of small environmental changes and providing solutions for personalized medicine. This paper proposes a multidimens...

The demand for flexible pressure sensors is increasing with the rapid development of wearable smart devices, dexterous manipulators, and human-machine application interfaces. Despite the development of flexible sensors capable of effectively sensing multidimensional forces, the challenge of directly restoring information from objects in contact rem...

In medical and surgical scenarios, the trajectory planning of a collaborative robot arm is a difficult problem. The artificial potential field (APF) algorithm is a classic method for robot trajectory planning, which has the characteristics of good real-time performance and low computing consumption. There are many variants of the APF algorithm, amo...

When robot hands work in a com plex environment, it not only needs to sense the objects in contact, but also needs to respond to remote events before physical contact. In this way, robot hands can make prediction, so as to better adapt to the complex environment. In this paper, we have designed a flexible sensor array, which integrates piezoresisti...

In current industrial production, robots have increasingly been taking the place of manual workers. With the improvements in production efficiency, accidents that involve operators occur frequently. In this study, a flexible sensor system was designed to promote the security performance of a collaborative robot. The flexible sensors, which was made...

People with neurological deficits face difficulties perceiving their surroundings, resulting in an urgent need for wearable electronic skin (e-skin) that can monitor external stimuli and temperature changes. However, the monolithic structure of e-skin is not conducive to breathability and hinders hair growth, limiting its wearing comfort. In this w...

Ti3C2 MXene has received tremendous interest as a potential electrode in flexible electronics due to its promising electronic and mechanical properties. However, its inherent properties determine the interfacial performance and the interfacial properties with MoS2 are critical to nanoelectronics device. Based on first-principles calculations, the m...

Superparamagnetic nanoparticles have been widely used as contrast agents in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The combined use of multiple imaging modes can provide more accurate information for clinical diagnosis. In this paper, a MRI/fluorescence dual-mode imaging contrast agent was developed by a simple method. The method is to make the fluoresc...

The repair of nasal cartilage lesions and defects is still a difficult problem in nasal surgery, and nasal cartilage tissue engineering will be an effective way to solve this problem. Hydrogel has excellent application potential in tissue engineering. In order to produce a 3D printable scaffold for cartilage regeneration, we prepared gelatin methac...

The vast majority of patients with corneal blindness cannot recover their vision due to the serious shortage of donor cornea. However, the technology to construct a feasible corneal substitute is a promising treatment method for corneal blindness. In this paper, methacrylated gelatin (GelMA)-methacrylated hyaluronic acid (HAMA) double network (GHDN...

Back Cover: In article number 2100643 by Shengbo Sang and co‐workers, a paper‐based sensing array with layered structure and high sensitivity is prepared by using a writing method which is applied to graphic pressure sensing and distance position detection. Because many scenarios require a safe distance to be maintained, particularly under the infl...

Currently, mechanical biosensors were greatly applied in detecting various biomarkers. However, the sensitivity of the mechanical biosensor needs to be further improved to be expected to achieve higher performance for the single molecule detection. Herein, we proposed a membrane-type biosensor based on magnetic, surface stress and electric coupling...

The existing analysis methods for the silicon gyroscope drive loop, such as the perturbation method and period average method, cannot analyze the dynamic characteristics of the system. In this work, a linearized amplitude control model of the silicon gyroscope drive loop was established to analyze the stability and set-up time of the drive loop, an...

Pizoelectric flexible magnetic field sensors have recently attracted much attention due to their high sensitivity and fast response time. A clear sensing mechanism will effectively improve the performance of such sensors. Here, we report a BaTiO3-Fe-Ga&PDMS flexible magnetic sensor. The magnetostrictive and magnetic field detection performance of t...

The development of wearable devices has shown tremendous dynamism, which places greater demands on the accuracy and consistency of sensors. This work reports a flexible sensing system for human health monitoring of parameters such as human pulse waveform, blood pressure and heart rate. The signal acquisition part is a vertically structured piezores...

The membrane based on receptor functionalization provides a new paradigm for the development of mechanical biosensors. However, improvement of sensitivity and test accuracy is still a challenge for mechanical biosensors in practical application. Herein, a surface stress mechanical biosensor (MBioS) based on double‐side‐gold nanoparticale (AuNP)‐coa...

Paper-based flexible pressure sensors have received extensive attention owing to their recoverability and accessibility. In this study, we proposed a graphical pressure sensor array with multilayered structure. A simple writing method was adopted to realize the adsorption of sensitive materials on the fiber structure of cellulose paper. Pressure se...

Back Cover: In article number 2100251, Qiang Zhang and co-workers propose a flexible pressure sensor based on a graphene/MXene-PDMS@sponge. The sensor exhibits high sensitivity (0.053 kPa⁻¹), high stability (2000 cycles loading) and variability (0 – 35 kPa detection limit). Furthermore, the sensor array can effectively detect static pressure, systo...

As a new rapid additive manufacturing technology that has emerged in recent years, 3D printing technology can realize the precise manufacturing of complex and flexible sensor structures. In this study, a sensor was fabricated by injecting silver nanowires (AgNWs) ethanol solution into stretchable polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). The substrate was used...

At present, more and more flexible pressure sensors are used in wearable devices. The improvement of the adsorbability of nanomaterials on sponge flexible pressure sensors is an urgent problem to be solved. Here, using conductive carbon black with good dispersibility and small particle size as the conductive filler filled in the middle of the spong...

Paper based flexible pressure sensors have received extensive attention due to their recoverability and accessibility. In this paper, we proposed graphical pressure sensors array with multilayered structure. A simple writing method was adopted to achieve the adsorption of sensitive materials on the fiber structure of cellulose paper. Pressure senso...

Flexible sensor is one of the prevalent directions in the sensor field, and the sensing material and structure are the main aspects that affect the performance of the sensor. This paper studies a flexible pressure sensor based on Graphene/MXene‐PDMS @ sponge. Using the porous skeleton structure of sponge and the high conductivity and synergy of Gra...

Magnetic field detection is one of the most important processes in academic and industrial applications. Flexible magnetic field sensors are often fabricated with magnetic nanoparticles. Superparamagnetic materials have better repeatability than ferromagnetic materials, but the sensitivity needs to be further improved. To solve this problem, in thi...

The bionic application of electronic skin (e-skin) requires a high resolution close to that of human skin, while its long-term attachment to human body or robotic skin requires a porous structure that is air permeable and enables hair growth. To simultaneously meet the requirements of high resolution and porous structure, as well as improve the sen...

The wide application prospects of flexible strain sensors and pressure sensors in robotic perception have led to an urgent demand for the high‐precision customized manufacturing and flexible integration of such devices. Herein, a 3D‐printed wearable strain and tactile sensing array is developed for robotic perception by integrating a flexible strai...

Organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) are attracting great interest in the field of bioelectronics due to their low operating voltage, flexibility, and biocompatibility. Tunability of the static and transient characteristics renders OECTs with flexible electrical responses and versatile functionalities. However, existing tuning methods are kn...

Promoting the detection range, durability, and shapeable manufacturing of flexible strain sensors is essential to broaden their applications. Therefore, in this study, styrene ethylene butylene styrene (SEBS) rubber as a flexible material and a melt-mixing molding method are adopted to design an ultra-flexible strain sensor. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs)...

The sensitivity improvement is the choke point of the soft strain sensor's development. This paper focuses on heightening the soft strain sensor's sensitivity through changing the sensitive unit's shape. The sensitive units in shape of square or sine wave with different periods were studied in this work. Silver nanowires (Ag NWs) in excellent elect...

Dispersibility and magnetic response characteristics of magnetic nanoparticles is crucial to the sensitivity and stability of flexible magnetic field sensors. To improve the performance of magnetic nanoparticles, this paper reported a preparation method of the fullerene-coated ferric oxide (C60@Fe3O4) magnetic nanocomposites. The TEM results showed...

Carbon nanotube (CNT) has received tremendous attention for potential use in many field due to its excellent physicochemical properties. However, the application performance derived from the electronic properties has remained a great challenge. Motivated by the electronic property of CNT, metal (M) such as silver (Ag), gold (Au) or platinum (Pt) do...

Black phosphorus (BP) has recently garnered significant attention due to its specific physical properties. At present, high-quality few-layer and thin-film BP is obtained principally by mechanical exfoliation, restricting its device applications in the future. Here, a facile, direct synthesis of highly crystalline thin-film BP on GaN(001) substrate...

The organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) exhibit the advantages of high gain, low operation voltage, and compatibility with flexible substrates as well as biocompatible materials. These unique characteristics promote the application of OECTs in the biosensing and electrophysiological monitoring. Low-cost OECTs can be manufactured by the elec...

The flexible strain sensor is a fast-moving technology and has been used in many fields. The array design and application based on flexible strain sensors have been the current research hotspots. However, there are few reports on research of acoustic positioning using the flexible sensor array. Herein, we designed and realized the consistent fabric...

In the research of flexible pressure sensors supported by three-dimensional skeleton structure, the combination of nanomaterials and skeleton structure is a difficult problem to be further solved. Herein, a piezoresistive sensor based on the graphene-PDMS @ sponge is prepared by fixing graphene on a sponge skeleton using PDMS. The as-prepared piezo...

Negative dielectrophoresis is widely used in cell localization for long-term observations such as the impedance analysis, in vivo drug screening, and cell patterns. However, the coupling effect of AC electrokinetics, including negative dielectrophoresis, AC electroosmosis, and electrothermal flow is still unclear. This work investigated cell locali...

3D print technology provided an opportunity to achieve fast and accurate fabrication of wearable sensor arrays. In this paper, high-sensitivity flexible and stretchable silver coated carbon nanotubes (Ag@CNT) wearable strain sensor arrays are fabricated using 3D printing technology and composite nanomaterial synthesis. Ag@CNTs with uniform and comp...

β-Thalassaemia is an inherited blood disorder with serious complications. Combining the unique advantages of DNA and magnetoelastic (ME) materials, an ME DNA-biosensor was proposed that can wirelessly detect a target DNA sequence (tDNA) that is a 4-bp deletion in codon 41/42 (-TTCT) in the β-globin gene causing β-thalassaemia. The thiolated capture...

Recently, highly stretchable strain sensors have attracted considerable attention. Identifying alternatives to sensitive unit materials and flexible substrates is critical in the fabrication of sensors. Herein, a trinary hybrid carbon material consisting of carbon nanotubes (CNTs), graphene, and fullerene was chosen due to its dense interconnection...

Nanomaterial-based flexible strain sensors have developed rapidly in recent years. Here, we propose a flexible strain sensor based on polydimethylsiloxane with carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene quantum dots (GQDs). Different weight ratios of CNTs and GQDs were used as the sensitive units of the strain sensors. After analyzing the results of curr...

This paper presents a new flexible magnetic field sensor based on Ag nanowires and magnetic nanoparticles doped in polydimethylsiloxane (AgNWs & MNs-PDMS) with sandwich structure. The MNs act as the sensitive unit for magnetic field sensing in this work. Besides, the conductive networks are made by AgNWs during deformation. Magnetostriction leads t...

Abstract Soft-strain-based sensors are being increasingly used across various fields, including wearable sensing, behavior monitoring, and electrophysiological diagnostics. However, throughout all applications, the function of these sensors is limited because of high sensitivity, high-dynamic range, and low-power consumption. In this paper, we focu...

Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(4-styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS)-based organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) are widely utilized to construct highly sensitive biosensors. However, the PSS phase exhibits insulation, weak acidity, and aqueous instability. In this work, we fabricated PEDOT OECT by alternating current electrodeposition in pr...

Flexible pressure sensors based on capacitive induction have become a research hot-spot because of low energy consumption and excellent performance in recent years. In practical applications, a wide range of detection and low-cost mass-produced flexible pressure sensors are ideal. Herein, this paper presents a wide detection range capacitive pressu...

Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) films compositing with gold nanomaterials are of growing interest in biosensor applications. However, low compatibility between gold and PDMS limits their sensitivity in biosensing. Herein, we reported a surface stress biosensor based on the gold nanoparticle-PDMS (AuNP-PDMS) film for detection of bovine serum albumin (B...

The surface stress-based biosensor has been applied in fast and sensitive identification of Escherichia coli (E. coli)with significance for public health, food, and water safety. However, the stable sensitive element of flexible biosensor based on surface stress is still crucial and challengeable. Here, the authors reported surface stress-induced b...

Flexible electronics devices with tactile perception can sense the mechanical property data of the environment and the human body, and they present a huge potential in the human health system. In particular, the introduction of ultra-flexible and self-powered characteristics to tactile sensors can effectively reduce the problems caused by rigid bat...

It has been known for a long time that graphene flakes of certain geometries can develop spontaneous spin polarization. Here, it is studied what happens when two triangular graphene nanoflakes, possibly different sizes, are placed in close proximity with AB (Bernal) stacking. The results of first-principles calculations show that the magnetic groun...

The composite of gold and PDMS hold remarkable potential for surface stress-based biosensor applicaitons. However, the gold and PDMS in composite suffers from poor compatibility with each other and suppresses the performance of the biosensor. Here, we conduct two-step synthesis of the composite of gold and PDMS by in-situ reduction and glucose redu...

Carbon nanotube-based silver (CNT–Ag) composite has recently proved to be a sensing material due to the excellent electrical characteristics and is being considered as one of the promising sensing material candidates for flexible strain sensors. However, understanding the effect of interaction ways between Ag and CNT on conductivity is limited. Bas...

Flexible pressure sensors based on piezoresistive induction have recently become a research hotspot due to the simple device structure, low energy consumption, easy readout mechanism and excellent performance. For practical applications, flexible pressure sensors with both high sensitivity and low-cost mass production are highly desirable. Herein,...

Combining metal and carbon nanomaterials is an effective way to significantly enhance the performance of soft strain sensors. The role of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) functionalized with different chemical groups in improving the properties of nanosilver‐coated carbon nanotubes (Ag@CNT) is investigated. The functionalized CNTs are first calculated with...

Strain sensor is widely desired for flexible and wearable electronic devices, such as human motion capturing and electronic skin. In strain sensing, it is a challenge to ensure that the strain sensor based on CNTs–PDMS has both high-performance flexibility and sensitivity. Here, this study reports a flexible strain sensor based on the AuNPs/CNTs/PD...

Nowadays, flexible strain sensors applied in the fields of health care and electronic skin have been widely studied and applied. In fact, the temperature characteristic of flexible strain sensors based on metal nanomaterials is rarely concerned. In this work, the ohmic and tensile properties of the flexible strain sensor based on silver nanowires-p...

A comprehensive first-principles study of the correlation between zero-energy states and the tunability of the spin-selective semiconducting properties of zigzag-edged bowtie-shaped graphene nanoflakes under an electric field is presented for the first time. We demonstrate that the spin degenerate semiconducting ground state can be lifted by the el...

A novel wireless immunosensor is developed for the ultra-sensitive detection of carcinoembryonic antigen. The optimum dimension of the microchips, as magnetoelastic sensitive units, was evaluated by simulation and experiments. The unique effects signal amplification and biocompatibility of gold particles contribute to the stability and sensitivity...

Background With the increasing serious problem of water environment pollution, it is a hot spot to study the high efficient sewage treatment method. Owning to the photosensitization of carbon nanomaterials, carbon doped TiO2 (C-TiO2) has higher photocatalytic activity. Method Here, we proposed a new method, carbon-assisted method, to prepare C-TiO...

Here, we propose a highly sensitive and stretchable strain sensor based on silver nanoparticles and nanowires (Ag NPs & NWs) advancing the rapid development of the electronic skin. To improve the sensitivity of the strain sensor based on silver nanowires (Ag NWs), Ag NPs & NWs were added into the polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) as an aid filler. The si...

Purpose In this article, we develop a dynamic Bayesian network (DBN) model to measure 3D visual fatigue. As far as our information goes, this is the first adaptation of a DBN structure‐based probabilistic framework for inferring the 3D viewer's state of visual fatigue. Methods Our measurement focuses on the interdependencies between each factor an...

We demonstrate a human body based electrode‐free triboelectric nanogenerator which is capable of grabbing biomechanical energy by triboelectrification between human body and polymer cloth. A PTFE film with nanostructured surface serves as one triboelectric layer, while the human body plays a dual role of both a triboelectric layer and natural elect...

Due to the rapid development and superb performance of electronic skin, we propose a highly sensitive and stretchable temperature and strain sensor. Silver nanoparticles coated carbon nanowires (Ag@CNT) nanomaterials with different Ag concentrations were synthesized. After the morphology and components of the nanomaterials were demonstrated, the se...

A wireless magnetoelastic (ME) biosensor immobilized with E2 glycoprotein was first developed to detect classical swine fever virus (CSFV) E2 antibody. The detection principle is that a sandwich complex of CSFV E2 – rabbit anti-CSFV E2 antibody – alkaline phosphatase (AP) conjugated goat anti-rabbit IgG formed on the ME sensor surface, with biocata...

Fine-tuning magnetic states by understanding topological frustration inducing magnetic mechanism should allow greater flexibility for the design of graphene-based spintronics. Based on first-principles calculations, it is predicted that bowtie-shaped graphene nanoflake (GNF) is of spin-polarized ground state exhibiting antiferromagnetic (AFM) order...

A magnetoelastic (ME) biosensor functionalized by bovine serum albumin (BSA) was firstly developed for the wireless detection of heavy metal ions in solution. The biosensor was fabricated by coating a gold-modified ME ribbon with BSA. Its resonance oscillation and resonance frequency can be actuated and wirelessly monitored through magnetic fields....

Silver nanoparticles grown on reduced graphene oxide (AgNPs/RGO) were successfully synthesized via a facile in situ method. The samples were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Raman spectroscopy, field emission transmission electron microscopy (FETEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The results show that silver ions distribute extens...

Based on the advantages and broad applications of stretchable strain sensors, this study reports a simple method to fabricate a highly sensitive strain sensor with Ag nanomaterials-polydimethylsiloxane (AgNMs-PDMS) to create a synergic conductive network and a sandwich-structure. Three Ag nanomaterial samples were synthesized by controlling the con...

The method of using dielectrophoresis (DEP) to assemble graphene between micro-electrodes has been proven to be simple and efficient. We present an optimization method for the kinetic formula of graphene DEP, and discuss the simulation of the graphene assembly process based on the finite element method. The simulated results illustrate that the acc...

Dispersions of individual carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are crucial for nanodevices and polymer/CNTs nanocomposites. In this paper, stable and homogenous dispersions of individual multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) have been synthesized. The factors influencing the dispersibility mechanism, including the surfactant concentration and the pH value, have...

The micro-mechanism of the silicon-based waveguide surface smoothing is investigated systematically to explore the effects of silicon-hydrogen bonds on high-temperature hydrogen annealing waveguides. The effect of silicon-hydrogen bonds on the surface migration movement of silicon atoms and the waveguide surface topography are revealed. The micro-m...

p-Co3O4/n-TiO2 nanoparticles (~400 nm) for photocatalysis were prepared via carbon assisted method and sol-gel method in this work. The paper also studied the application of visible light illuminated p-Co3O4/n-TiO2 nanocomposites cocatalyst to the overall pure water splitting into H2 and O2. In addition, the H2 evolution rate of the p-Co3O4/n-TiO2...

Pure Co3O4 microcrystals were prepared by a hydrothermal method from Co(NO3)2·6H2O and urea solution, and the effect of thermal treatment time on the growth of Co3O4 microcrystals was studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Raman and UV-Vis absorption spectra. The results show that with the thermal treatment time inc...

This paper presents a novel approach in synthesizing SiO2–Fe3O4 magnetic carrier with high stability. The Fe3O4 magnetic powders were synthesized via one-step method named carbon reduction method. The advantages of the methods are of simple process, none lead-in pollution agent, low cost and adaptation to large-lot production. The stability of the...

The core-shell structured Co 3 O 4 -PANI nanocomposites have been successfully prepared using an in situ polymerization method, while the core Co 3 O 4 nanoparticles were synthesized by carbon-assisted method using degreasing cotton as a template. The obtained samples were characterized by XRD, TEM, FTIR, and XPS. The results indicated that the amo...

Carbon-incorporated Co3O4 nanoparticles with an average diameter of 50 nm were prepared via a facile and environmentally friendly one-pot carbon-assisted method using degreasing cotton as a template as well as a reactant. The elemental analysis indicates the incorporation of carbon species into the Co3O4 nanoparticles and the XPS measurements demon...

Octahedral Co3O4 (approximate to 1 m) was synthesised by a one-step carbon-assisted method using degreasing cotton and cobalt chloride as precursors. The characterisation results show that the calcination temperature, calcination time, reaction precursor, oxygen environment and reactants ratio of the precursor play important roles in fabricating th...

Carbon-incorporated octahedral Co3O4 was synthesized via a novel and environment-friendly one-pot method using degreasing cotton as the sacrificial templates and its photocatalytic ability on producing H2 from water/ethanol solution under simulated solar light condition was investigated. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscope (SEM...

The composite piezoelectric-triboelectric films were prepared by using the inverting mold process and polarized. The PDMS mixture, incorporated with BaTiO3 nanoparticles and MWCNTs, was uniformly coated on the surface of the silicon mold with an array of pyramid micro-structures and heated before the film was made. SEM and Raman spectroscopy were u...

A simple and cost-effective approach was developed to fabricate piezoelectric and triboelectric nanogenerator (P-TENG) with high electrical output. Additionally, pyramid micro structures fabricated atop a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) surface were employed to enhance the device performance. Furthermore, piezoelectric barium titanate (BT) nanoparticle...