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Science 9 June 2006:
Vol. 312. no. 5779, pp. 1501 - 1504
DOI: 10.1126/science.1126216
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Reports

High-Resolution Thin-Film Device to Sense Texture by Touch

Vivek Maheshwari1 and Ravi F. Saraf1,2*

Touch (or tactile) sensors are gaining renewed interest as the level of sophistication in the application of minimum invasive surgery and humanoid robots increases. The spatial resolution of current large-area (greater than 1 cm2) tactile sensor lags by more than an order of magnitude compared with the human finger. By using metal and semiconducting nanoparticles, a ~100-nm-thick, large-area thin-film device is self-assembled such that the change in current density through the film and the electroluminescent light intensity are linearly proportional to the local stress. A stress image is obtained by pressing a copper grid and a United States 1-cent coin on the device and focusing the resulting electroluminescent light directly on the charge-coupled device. Both the lateral and height resolution of texture are comparable to the human finger at similar stress levels of ~10 kilopascals.

1 Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68588, USA.
2 Edward Via Virginia College of Osteopathic Medicine, Blacksburg, VA 24060, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: rsaraf{at}unlnotes.unl.edu

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
The Role of Fingerprints in the Coding of Tactile Information Probed with a Biomimetic Sensor.
J. Scheibert, S. Leurent, A. Prevost, and G. Debregeas (2009)
Science 323, 1503-1506
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