Hydrogel e-skin stretches sensory limits

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Researchers have developed a hydrogel e-skin with integrated nanowires that retains its ability to sense after thousands of deformations.

Described in Science Advances, the biomimetic e-skin was created at Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). It features a soft hydrogel substrate reinforced with silica nanoparticles on top of a 2D titanium carbide MXene sensing layer.

Highly conductive nanowires bind the two layers, enabling the e-skin to sense objects from 20cm away and respond to stimuli in under one-tenth of a second. According to the KAUST team, the prototype could one day be used on advanced prosthetics and soft robotics.

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"The ideal e-skin will mimic the many natural functions of human skin, such as sensing temperature and touch, accurately and in real time," said KAUST postdoc Yichen Cai.

"The landscape of skin electronics keeps shifting at a spectacular pace. The emergence of 2D sensors has accelerated efforts to integrate these atomically thin, mechanically strong materials into functional, durable artificial skins."

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