Stretchable electronic skin will open doors to a spectrum of interactive devices

07-Oct-10

Researchers at the University of Cambridge Research Centre, in collaboration with Nokia are working to develop a stretchable ‘electronic skin’. The material is a highly flexible, transparent silicone rubber. Stretchable electronic skin will open the doors to a whole new world of interactive devices- handheld electronic devices, robotics, health monitoring, or the arts and entertainment. The material developed at the Nokia Research Centre in Cambridge, UK uses evaporated gold as a conductor to create an electronic touch interface, which it says can be “stretched like a rubber band”. In the future the material could be used for wearable devices or integrated into clothing. The mobile phone giant revealed on its blog, Nokia Conversations, that the research centre is in the process of developing a technology that means circuit boards no longer have to be solid. Instead they say that production of a flexible, stretchable material, that responds to touch and pressure, is possible. The material has been tested to the point where it can stretch by up to 20% of its original length without a drop in performance. This could create completely different ways of us interacting with technology in the future. What is solid and known to us right now, could be flexible and entirely different in the future. “We are developing novel approaches to engineer stretchable bio-electronic systems based on the integration of semiconductor circuits and transducers on ultra-compliant substrates with a special emphasis on biomechanical matching of cell-to-device interfaces,” said Dr Stéphanie Lacour, a Junior Research Fellow of King's College and a University Research Fellow of the Royal Society, “Those circuits can be designed to ideally fit a peripheral nerve in vivo or to cover patches of skin. The applications of such a technology are vast: they include functional repair of damaged or diseased tissues, novel therapeutic platforms, and on- or off-body communication systems.