An Extreme Environment Capable Self‐Healing Single Active Layered Triboelectric Sensors as Fully Recyclable and Transparent Human‐Machine Interfaces

Abstract Current approaches to triboelectric devices require multiple layers. Here, a transparent ultra‐stretchable single active layered ionic‐based nanogenerator is shown that can self‐heal in both dry and wet environments. Despite being conductive, surprisingly the ionogel exhibits triboelectric properties and generates output voltages ranging from 1.7 to 70 V. By tuning the ionic liquid concentration, unique triboelectric devices with position‐detection and energy harvesting ability are developed. This design enables visualization of the mechanical force distribution through the mechano‐electric‐optical conversion process, which is achieved by changing it from an insulating dielectric material to a tribo‐negative ionic conducting material. The triboelectric device maintains its stability and self‐healing ability at extreme environments (−20 to 380 °C, pH 1.3 to 13), and the device can be fully closed‐loop recycled for reuse. Various human‐machine interface applications such as untethered self‐powered light‐emitting jellyfish‐like devices are demonstrated, a mechano‐thermal sensor array, and tactile recognition of object shapes with over 91% accuracy using convolution neural networks (CNN).