Structural engineering of gold thin films with channel cracks for ultrasensitive strain sensing

Abstract

A strain sensing structure with high gauge factors (GFs) is designed by engineering channel cracks in a gold thin film. The developed strain sensors possess GFs as high as 200 (<italic>ε</italic> &lt; 0.5%), 1000 (0.5% &lt; <italic>ε</italic> &lt; 0.7%), and even exceeding 5000 (0.7% &lt; <italic>ε</italic> &lt; 1%).