橡胶状，可伸缩的半纤维和传感器满足机器人手

It’s possible to make silicon and semiconductors somewhat flexible by using a super-thin substrate, but this brings performance issues and has other limitations. A team at the University of Houston has instead gone the "full stretch" by creating rubbery semiconductors including integrated electronics, logic circuits, and arrayed sensory skins(Fig. 1). Applications include robotic and "smart" skins gor gesture translation of sign-language alphabet and haptic sensing for robotics, as well as bioelectronics.

1.通过使用特殊注入的橡胶状聚合物基板加离子凝胶，研究人员开发了高度柔性的半导体和传感器。（资料来源：休斯顿大学）

The researchers combined their rubber composite (polydimethylsiloxane, PDMS) as a stretchable semiconductor with silver nanoparticles having conformally coated silver nanowires (AuNP-AgNW) dispersed within the PDMS as a stretchable conductor. An ion gel was used as a gate dielectric.

One additional benefit of their approach is they didn’t need to create a unique material, which would involve sophisticated molecular design and synthesis. Instead, all of the materials they used are commercially available and can be easily manufactured and have stable performances. They were able to greatly increase carrier mobility by providing fast paths and, therefore, a shortened carrier transport distance.

一些努力专注于他们的学术论文中详述的个人晶体管“Rubbery electronics and sensors from intrinsically stretchable elastomeric composites of semiconductors and conductors” in AAAS科学推进(with extensive references at the end), as well as in-depthSupplementary Materials. However, work was done on using this technology to create sensors for strain, pressure, and temperature.

例如,他们建造了一个作为应变传感器channel with a length and width of 50 mm and 5 mm, respectively, and thickness of approximately 100 nm(Fig. 2). The electrical resistance of the sensor increased as it stretched. When the applied strain was along the channel length direction, the resistance increased from 0.3 to 4.6 GΩ; an approximately linear increase of resistance was obtained upon mechanical stretching.

2.橡胶菌株，压力和温度传感器：应变传感器（A）的分解示意图;在不同级别的机械菌株（B）下传感器的照片;沿沟道长度方向（黑色）在不同机械应变水平下测量应变传感器的电阻，垂直于沟道长度方向（蓝色）（c）;循环拉伸释放下电阻（ΔR/ RO）的相对变化（D）;测量应变传感器相对于不同菌株（e）的仪表GF;在不同水平的压力（F）下的相对于时间的相对电阻（R / RO）改变压力传感器;负载（红色）和卸载（蓝色）周期（G）下压力传感器的相对电阻变化;温度传感器相对于不同温度（H）的相对电阻变化。（图片来源：休斯顿大学）

For a real-world, more-tangible demonstration of the potential of the stretchable electronics and sensors, the team outfitted a robotic hand (Star Wars Science, Darth Vader robotic arm) with temperature and pressure sensors placed on the phalanges instead of the joints of the fingers, to avoid coupled output from the finger motions(Fig. 3). This artificial skin can provide capabilities such as gesture interpretation and haptic sensing for robots. The strain sensors directly translate a gesture into an electrical parameter such as resistance to provide data for understanding of sign language, among other applications.

3.本质上可伸展的橡胶基电子机器人皮肤：机器人手与本质上可伸展的橡胶状传感器（A）的照片;位于机器人手指（左，俯视图）的铰链上的应变传感器的照片，并具有不同弯曲角度的机器人手指的重叠照片，从0°到90°（右侧，侧视图）（b）：菌株的电阻传感器在不同程度的弯曲（C）下;在机器人手上使用一系列应变传感器来翻译手语字母（D）的示范。彩色手的插图原理图是对应于手势的电阻值（参见补充材料和图3和图2. S11和S12用于细节）。机器人手与温度（e）的照片。（资料来源：休斯顿大学）

Made Culience Mancience Mances Engineering助理教授Cunjiang Yu Cunjiang Yu表示，下一步将涉及进一步增加载流子系统和建设更复杂的层次和高级集成数字电路。