Human skin is an active, sensitive and highly elastic sensory organ that is responsible for protecting the body, perspiration, regulating temperature, and sensing hot and cold and pressure. The human body’s somatosensory system can convert external environmental stimuli into electrical pulse signals through touch, temperature, pain and other receptors in the skin, and conduct them to the nerve center through nerve pathways, so that the skin can obtain touch, pain and other sensory functions.
Based on the multifunctional biological model of skin, scientists have carried out research on an emerging discipline – tactile electronics (commonly known as “Electronic skin”, E-skin), which is used to imitate the sensory functions of skin such as touch and temperature sensing. and other functions.
SCMN diagram of multifunctional electronic skin
At present, electronic skins are made on flexible or elastic substrates with sensors and arrays capable of detecting pressure, temperature or other stimuli. They can sense various physical, chemical, biological and other signals in the surrounding environment, which will help develop new human-machine interfaces, Intelligent systems such as intelligent robots and bionic prosthetics. In addition, an important development trend of electronic skin is multi-functionality and simultaneous monitoring of multiple stimuli.
Optical and oblique SEM images of polyimide network
Recently, a research team from the Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Systems, Chinese Academy of Sciences, proposed a flexible, stretchable, multi-functional integrated sensor array that successfully expanded the detection capabilities of electronic skin to 7 types, including temperature, humidity, ultraviolet light, Real-time simultaneous monitoring of various external stimuli such as magnetism, strain, pressure and proximity.
The researchers used micro-nano processing technology to prepare a polyimide (PI) tensile structure network with high magnification (8 times and above, which can be designed according to needs), including numerous sensor nodes and meandering tensile structures. Based on this tensile structure network, various sensors can be multifunctional in two-dimensional distributed or three-dimensional stacked structures.Integrated, and multiple sensing units can work independently without affecting each other. By utilizing the stretchability of the substrate, the detection area of the electronic skin can be expanded, which facilitates its further functional expansion.
Mechanical and electrical testing of multifunctional electronic skin
In addition, researchers used this electronic skin to create an intelligent prosthetic limb with customized functional integration, which not only gives the prosthetic limb a tactile function, but also gives the prosthetic limb the ability to sense temperature. This research will help develop new human-machine interfaces, intelligent robots, bionic prosthetics and other intelligent systems. The multi-functional integrated electronic skin can also simultaneously monitor multiple variables of the surrounding environment for use in human health monitoring and other fields.
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