A Comprehensive Review: Recent Developments of Biomimetic Sensors

With the fast development of Internet of Things, flexible and extensible sensors have undergone a great revolution. Because of the limited functions of traditional flexible sensors, more and more researchers begin to develop biomimetic sensors inspired by nature, which introduce unique structures of various natural creatures into sensors through a simple and low-cost process, endowing them with excellent comprehensive properties. By imitating structures, compositions, biological mechanisms of natural organisms, these flaws can be overcome, making sensors have a variety of functions, such as hydrophobicity, discoloration and so on. In this paper, biomimetic objects used in sensors are summarized from three perspectives, plants (lotus leaves), animals (butterfly wings) and components (enzymes). And then, the common preparation methods of biomimetic materials are described in detail, such as template method, hydrothermal method, lithography. Furthermore, the current applications of biomimetic sensors in wearable fields like electronic skin, human health detection and human motion detection, are also generalized. Finally, the difficulties and limitations of sensors, efforts to improve properties of materials, as well as likely future developments were discussed. Hence, it is highly promising to provide readers with a quick glimpse into the research landscape of this field.