Abstract

Human bodily movements are primarily controlled by the contractions of skeletal muscles. Unlike joint or skeletal movements that generally perform in the large displacement range, the contractions of the skeletal muscles that underpin these movements are subtle in intensity yet high in frequency. This subtlety of movement makes it a formidable challenge to develop wearable yet durable soft materials to electrically monitor such motions with high-fidelity such as for muscle/neuromuscular disease diagnosis.

Here we report that an intrinsically fragile ultralow-density graphene-based cellular monolith sandwiched between silicone rubbers can exhibit a highly effective stress and strain transfer mechanism at its interface with the rubber, and endow it with remarkable stretchability improvement (>100%). In particular, this hybrid also exhibits a highly sensitive, broadband frequency electrical response (up to 180 Hz) for a wide range of strains.

By correlating the mechanical signal of muscle movements obtained from this hybrid material with electromyography, we demonstrate that the strain sensor based on this hybrid material may provide a new, soft and wearable mechanomyography approach for real-time monitoring of complex neuromuscular-skeletal interactions for a broad range of healthcare and human-machine interface applications. This work also suggests a new architecture-enabled functional soft material platform for use in wearable electronics.