Recent Progress in Self-healing Materials for Sensor Arrays

The recent development of diverse types of self-healing materials promises increased material lifetimes, reduced replacement costs, and improved product safety in a wide variety of practical engineering applications. In particular, self-healing materials provide advantages in electronic devices, conductors and sensors, as evidenced by their possible applications such as electronic skin, protectively conductive coating, adhesives, energy storage devices, aerospace, automobile, etc. To further the development of self-healing materials for sensors and conductors, this review provides a summary of the current work. A short overview of self-healing concepts and classification are presented, and some of the strengths and weaknesses of each type of self-healing material are introduced and highlighted, in relation to various sensor applications. A perspective on self-healing material approaches and development strategies using soft electronic technology is provided.