Passive Electronic Skin with Highly Sensitive Tactile Sensory Capabilities

Mimicking human's tactile sensory capabilities enables the functionality of electronic skin (e-skin), which plays a crucial role in the interaction between humans and the environment, and operation life and stability are key factors for the application. Here, we present the development of passive e-skin with a layered structure to realize tactile capabilities. No external energy supply is required during the achievement of the tactile functions. The fabricated e-skin shows high sensitivity responses with pressure and temperature stimuli simultaneously. Discrimination of surface textures and mimicking humans' thermosensation are demonstrated by the measurements of time-dependent voltage variations and theoretical fittings. The multifunctional tactile sensing e-skin with low energy consumption provides opportunities of flexible electronics in promising important applications in robotic skins, prosthetics, and wearable sensors.