Flexible Temperature Sensors Constructed with Fiber Materials

Accurate and real-time detection of human body temperature changes is crucial to understand thermal homeostasis, to access complex health conditions, and to further build a smart healthcare system. Recent years have seen temperature sensors open up many potential applications in electronic skin, artificial intelligence, and next-generation smart robots. Currently, traditional mercury and infrared thermometers are extensively used for human body temperature detection. However, they still suffer from rigid appearance, slow response, insufficient sensitivity, low accuracy, and potential harm risk to the users. Therefore, it is highly desired to develop more breathable, deformable, and economically available functional materials to construct the flexible high performance temperature sensors. Alternatively, fiber materials have attracted more attention owing to their soft, flexible, deformable, and porous features. This review summarizes a comprehensive research advancement in the field of flexible temperature sensors constructed with fiber materials. Temperature sensing mechanisms, functional constructing materials, performance characterizations, practical applications, and fiber-based temperature sensors with different structural designs are systematically introduced at great length. Research outlook and prospects will be presented to inspire the potential readers.