Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-020-03424-5 Carbon nanotubes, orange dye, and graphene powder based multifunctional temperature, pressure, and displacement sensors Shahid Shafque 1  · Khasan S. Karimov 2,3  · Muhammad Abid 4  · Muhammad Mansoor Ahmed 1  · Khakim M. Akhmedov 3  · Aziz‑ur‑Rehman 2 Received: 2 December 2019 / Accepted: 14 April 2020 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020 Abstract This work presents design, fabrication, and investigation of carbon nanotube (CNT), orange dye (OD), and graphene powder based multifunctional sensors. The output of the multifunctional sensors is observed as change in resistance and impedance values for an input change in temperature, pressure, and compressive displacement between the sensors electrodes. Using these sensors, temperature variation ranging from 30 to 65 ◦ C, pressure 0 to 0.1 kgf cm -2 and longitudinal compressive dis- placements of 0 to 110 μm are measured as change in resistance and impedance at two fxed frequencies, i.e., 100 Hz and 100 KHz. An increase in both resistance and impedance of the sensors is observed with increase in temperature. The temperature coefcients of the sensors having resistances ∼ 470 Ω and ∼ 890 Ω were 1.0% ◦ C -1 and 1.9% ◦ C -1 , respectively, when evalu- ated for temperatures ranging from 30 to 65 ◦ C. For applied pressure 0 kgf cm -2 to 0.1 kgf cm -2 and displacement 0 to 110 μm the resistance of the multifunctional sensor decreases 1.3 to + 12.7 times (from 6730 Ω to 5210 Ω and 3410 Ω to 269 Ω) and 3.18 to 7.53 times (2235 Ω to 702 Ω and 6787 Ω to 901 Ω), respectively. With increased thickness of OD layer from 300 μm to 570 μm, the output resistance and impedance of the sensors as a function of temperature also increased, exhibiting the improved sensitivity, however, at the expense of decreased pressure and displacement response of the sensors. Therefore, the thickness of OD flm can be used as a design parameter for a desired sensitivity value to cater a particular application. The proposed multifunctional sensor can be a good candidate to measure temperature, pressure, and displacement of an industrial unit, such as fex bonding head because it ofers light weight, simpler design, low maintenance, and eventually low cost. 1 Introduction Multifunctional sensors unlike ordinary sensors, can meas- ure a number of parameters such as temperature, humidity, strain, displacement, that are important for both research and industrial applications. For the past few years, a number of sensors, which can be used in diferent areas of technol- ogy such as environmental assessments were fabricated and investigated by various research groups [1–6]. A capacitive touch sensor array was fabricated by employing stretchable and transparent electrodes with a simple selective pattern- ing process, and by selecting an appropriate dielectric and substrate materials having low strain response [1]. Multi- functional sensors to measure oil, water, and salt contents are fabricated and investigated using conductivity and ultra- sound method [2] to overcome high cost, low precision, and operational difculties. Multifunctional sensors reported in [3] are fabricated using silicone hydrogels to detect pH value of solutions, types of solvent, and ethanol percentage in water. Multifunctional tactile sensors reported in [4] are fabricated to collect a set of information concerning tactile interaction between a manipulator and an object to be recog- nized. These sensors are based on piezo- and pyro-electric (ferroelectric) properties of polymeric materials, such as polymer polyvinylidene fuoride ( PVF 2 or PVDF), diferent polypeptides, and copolymers of PVF 2 and TrFE. Stretch- able multifunctional sensors using capacitive sensing mech- anism are fabricated using silver nanowires as electrodes * Shahid Shafque shahidshafque@yahoo.com 1 Capital University of Science and Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan 2 GIK Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology, Topi 23640, Swabi, Pakistan 3 Center for Innovative Development of Science and New Technologies of Academy of Sciences, Rudaki Ave.33, Dushanbe 734025, Republic of Tajikistan 4 Interdisciplinary Research Center, COMSATS University Islamabad, GT Road, Wah Cantt, Pakistan