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The new method, developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in the United States and the University of Coimbra in Portugal, creates ultra thin, stretchy electronic skin that could be used for a variety of human-machine interactions by producing film circuits with integrated microelectronics.
These electronic skins could be used in many applications, including prosthetics, portable health monitors, robotics and virtual reality, as well as in various interactions between humans and the machine.
A major challenge is to transfer ultra-thin electrical circuits to complex 3D surfaces and then to ensure that the electronic components are sufficiently flexible and expandable to allow movement.
But in the new approach described in ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, the team modeled a circuit template on a sheet of tattoo paper for transfer with an ordinary desktop laser printer.
They then smeared the template with a silver paste glued only to the printed toner ink.
In addition to silver paste, the team has deposited a gallium-indium-based liquid metal alloy that increases the electrical conductivity and flexibility of the circuit.
Finally, they added external electronic components such as microchips with a conductive "glue" consisting of vertically aligned magnetic particles embedded in a polyvinyl alcohol gel.
The team then transferred the electronic tattoo to various objects and presented several applications of the new method, such as controlling a robotic prosthetic arm, monitoring human skeletal muscle activity, and integrating of proximity sensors in a 3D model of the hand.
Previously, some scientists had developed flexible "electronic tattoos" for this purpose, but their production is generally slow, expensive and requires cleanroom manufacturing methods such as photolithography.
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