Electronic "skin" developed by researchers

Scientists have succeeded in creating electronic skin that glows when touched.

Photo: Ali Javey and Chuan Wang

Scientists at Berkeley University in California have developed a type of artificial electronic skin that reacts to touch. It appears in a report published in the journal Nature Materials.

Lights when the affected

The research group, led by Ali Javey, has managed to create a functioning interactive sensor networks in flexible plastic.

The electronic skin, or your skin as it is often referred to in English, lights up when touched.

This is possible by means of tiny OLED lamps which are attached to the plastic. The brightness becomes weaker and weaker depending on how hard you pre

The device is also thinner than paper

Promising future

Research on electronic skin is not entirely new. In 2010 he another research team at the University of California to develop a flexible electronic device.

Since then there have been several successful attempts to create electronic devices that mimic the skin. It has, however, been differences in how advanced and stable these have been.

Those who seem to have made the most progress is Ali Javey and his team. To the university's website he tells about the results.

- With this interactive electronic skin, we have demonstrated an elegant system of plastic that can be wrapped around various objects. This provides a new form of interaction between people and technology.

This is an illustration researchers have made to show how the "skin" glows when touched.

Photo: Ali Javey and Chuan Wang

A question many people may ask when developing electronic skin, what to use it for.

The researchers envision several uses.

- I see that the electronic skin can be wrapped around the arm of a patient to monitor blood pressure and pulse, says Chuan Wang, who also participated in the research.

The researchers also hope that you will eventually be able to use the artificial skin replacements to get the feel of artificial body parts.

The advanced sensors are able to sense motion and pressure that we humans do not have the chance to know with our own fingers. The challenge is to connect this system to the nervous system so that the sensor responses are perceived in the brain.

A future with flexible technology

Flexible technology is not something consumers see in stores today, but that could soon change.

Some of what you think is going in the future, flexible and unbreakable mobile computers. Korean scientists have already developed a flexible battery , which is an important step in the development of flexible phones.

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