How can electronic “skin” help advance the electronics and computer industry? This is what a recent study published in Nature hopes to address as a team of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of technology (MIT) and funded by the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research developed an ultrathin electronic “skin” that can sense heat and radiation. This study has the potential to expand the electronics industry by enhancing wearable and imaging devices used on smaller scales than at present.
For the study, the researchers designed and built a pyroelectric (temperature changes to create electric current) material that is only 10 nanometers thick while exhibiting superior sensing capabilities for wide ranges of heat and radiation. To accomplish this, the team conducted a series of laboratory experiments to verify the material’s capabilities, including using the material on a computer chip that measured approximately 60 square microns (approximately 0.006 square centimeters) and comprised of 100 ultrathin heat-sensing pixels. The pixels were then subjected to temperature changes to demonstrate its ability to measure those changes, which the researchers noted was successful.
“This film considerably reduces weight and cost, making it lightweight, portable, and easier to integrate,” said Xinyuan Zhang, who is a PhD student in MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE) and lead author of the study. “For example, it could be directly worn on glasses.”
Along with glassware, the team emphasized this new pyroelectric material could be used for wearable devices, biological sensing, autonomous driving in foggy conditions, and night-vision eyewear, along with not requiring bulky cooling systems that traditional heating devices currently use. Additionally, the material could be used for environmental applications like pollutant detection.
How will this new electronic “skin” help advance the electronics industry in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!
Sources: Nature, EurekAlert!