A research team of academics from Lanzhou University's School of Physical Science and Technology has developed a self-powered flexible and transparent electronic skin (e-skin) that can monitor human activities and is expected to shed light on the future of wearable electronics.
The leader of the research team, Prof. Dr. Lan Wei said that this new e-skin integrates a flexible transparent supercapacitor as an energy storage device with a stretchable transparent strain sensor. “Thanks to its mechanical softness, e-skin can be worn directly on various parts of the body for monitoring human activities,” said Lan, adding that this technology can be used in different areas such as smart health services, human-machine interaction, virtual reality and artificial intelligence.
The skin, the largest organ of the human body; It is responsible for numerous main functions such as protection, respiration, perspiration, temperature regulation and sensory stimulation. It forms the basis of people's physical interactions with the outside world. “Inspired by the sensory functions and performance of real human skin, we sought to make the new e-leather both flexible and transparent to meet both aesthetic and functional requirements,” said Lan.
After charging, e-skin, which can simulate real skin's sensing function, can be applied to human skin to realize subtle physical signals of people, real-time monitoring of multi-scale activities such as heart rate, swallowing and body movements.
Stating that e-skin forms the core of promising wearable electronics, for example, it can help surgeons control robots more precisely, Lan said, "It can provide long-distance 'touches' between people and create a more immersive gaming experience." Lan said the research team will now focus on enhancing the sensory capacity and power supply of e-skin, making it closer to human skin and more adaptable to a variety of future applications.