A thin, flexible device can sense a wide range of pressures and produces signals that stimulate nerve cells in a dish.

Credit: Bao Research Group, Stanford Univ.

Zhenan Bao of Stanford University in California and her collaborators embedded carbon nanotubes in a rubbery polymer and attached that material to a flexible circuit (pictured mounted on a robotic hand). The device mimicked the response of touch-sensitive nerve cells in the skin by emitting discrete electrical spikes of increasing frequency in response to applied pressure. The team converted the electronic signal into light that then stimulated genetically engineered, light-sensitive mouse neurons in vitro.

Such artificial skin could one day restore sensation for people wearing prostheses, the authors say.

Science 350, 313–316 (2015)