Electronic skin feels the heat, hears the sound

[saikat07]

A new electronic skin can feel the grain of sand paper, the heat and beat of a person’s pulse — and listen to Richard Feynman’s voice, too.

Rubbery plastic-and-graphene film mimicking the structure of human skin can detect texture, temperature, pressure and sound, Hyunhyub Ko and colleagues report October 30 in Science Advances.

It’s the first time anyone has demonstrated an e-skin that can sense so many different kinds of stimuli, says Stanford University materials scientist Alex Chortos. “That’s the innovative and impressive part of this work.”