Engineers at the Univ. of British Columbia have developed a transparent, stretchy sensor that could one day be draped over skin or surfaces such as windows, countertops, and steering wheels to either receive instructions or provide feedback to an appliance. Another application for the new material — a floor sensor that indicates the position of inhabitants.
“There are sensors that can detect pressure, such as the iPhone’s 3D Touch, and some that can detect a hovering finger, like Samsung’s AirView,” says Mirza Saquib Sarwar, a doctoral student in electrical and computer engineering at the Univ. of British Columbia. “There are also sensors that are foldable, transparent, and stretchable,” he continues. “Our device combines all of those functions in one compact package.”
▲ The sensor is made with a relatively simple, low-cost fabrication process. PDMS is cured in a mold patterned with grooves for the electrodes. This step is repeated for a second film with grooves that are perpendicular to those of the first grooved PDMS. The two grooved films are...
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