Electronic skins : Taking electronic circuits out of the 2D plane
Event details
| Date | 18.06.2010 |
| Hour | 09:00 |
| Speaker | Dr Stéphanie P. Lacour (Nanoscience Centre, University of Cambridge) |
| Location | |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
Electronic skin is a new frontier at which the ubiquity of electronics meets with the reality of the body. The body may be a robot, a tent or a biological organ. Such artificial skin is designed as a matrix of dense and localized electronic devices, made of conventional device materials and elastomeric substrates, and can conform to uneven macroscopic structures and dynamically move along extremely soft surfaces. Nature has already perfected the concept. Our skin, a >1m2 surface area organ, is soft and elastic, and embed a complex, multifunctional sensor network and its (non decisional) microprocessor relaying sensory information to the central nervous system. My research explores how to prepare a man-made version of the human skin. I focus on the materials and related technologies enabling the fabrication of stretchable, sensory and biocompatible electronic surfaces.
Making soft electronic skins presents considerable scientific and technological challenges: Can substrates that are inherently extensible support reliable fabrication of conductor and semiconductor devices? Can device materials withstand mechanical deformations without compromising their electrical properties? and Can electronic skins be truly biocompatible, i.e. provide long-term, reliable electronic interfaces with tissues in vivo?
I will illustrate those challenges and potential routes to overcome them using examples from my research on transistors, touch sensors and neural electrodes. First I will focus on stretchable metallization, i.e. thin gold films on silicone elastomer, which are robust to uni-axial or radial mechanical loading (to strains of tens of percent and over hundred thousands of cycles). These ultra-compliant films can be implemented in conformable touch and pressure sensor arrays, stretchable interconnects and electrodes for elastic thin-film transistor circuits, and soft micro-electrode arrays for in vitro monitoring of brain slice response to mechanical trauma or in vivo recording from regenerating nerves.
Practical information
- General public
- Free
Contact
- Juergen Brugger