US researchers make artificial skin with semiconductor nanowires

Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) have developed an artificial skin that is pressure-sensitive, and it is made with semiconductor nanowires.

"The idea is to have a material that functions like the human skin, which means incorporating the ability to feel and touch objects," said Dr. Ali Javey, professor of UC Berkeley and head of the research team, The Epoch Times informs.

Research member and co-author Kuniharu Takei wrote in Nature Materials that large-scale integration of high-performance electronic components on mechanically flexible substrates might also enable new applications in electronics, sensing and energy. He also noted that contact printing of parallel arrays of semiconductor nanowires (NWs) has been explored as a versatile route to enable fabrication of high-performance, bendable transistors and sensors.

"The development of an electronic skin is critical to the realization of artificial intelligence that comes into direct contact with humans, and to biomedical applications such as prosthetic skin. To mimic the tactile sensing properties of natural skin, large arrays of pixel pressure sensors on a flexible and stretchable substrate are required," an excerpt from the article explained, eWeek reports.