Mobile phone screen new material: can bend can be stretched

We do not leave the phone every day, and can not bend, but can not stretch, unless you want to break into the slag on the screen point to point. But recently, researchers in Canada have produced a new type of touch sensitive material, which can be bent and stretched. The advent of this material not only means that the touch screen will not be broken, but also means that we may find a way to feel the touch of artificial skin materials.

Researchers at the University of British Columbia say that this new type of touch sensitive material can still be sensitive to touch even when it is stretched or bent. This new type of material is made of conductive gel like material sandwiched between silica gel. This design makes it not only feel the touch, but also to measure the pressure, as well as suspended in the top of the fingers. The new design is collapsible, transparent, stretchable and low cost.

Although only a small prototype of a five cm square has been developed, the prototype has performed well in all tests, and can accurately detect finger movements suspended above a few centimeters. The next step is to try to make a larger prototype for further validation. Relatively speaking, this design is also more expensive, more likely to have a wider range of applications.
The researchers believe that this is not only a solution to the future screen, but also can be used as a variety of robot skin. Today’s robots are often unable to work in the vicinity of the human body, because their appearance is hard, and the perception of the surrounding environment is limited, very easy to harm the people around. The surface of the material covered by the robot, and as the sensor integration, can let the robot become soft and can feel the skin through the surrounding environment, so they will be safer, more not easy to hurt the people around.