'Smart Fingertips' Pave Way for Virtual Sensations From: ScienceNOW - 08/09/2012 By: Krystnell A. Storr A team of nanoengineers has created fingertip-based technology that can transmit electronic signals to the skin. The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign's John Rogers and colleagues created circuits that can bend, stretch, and fold by cutting up nanometer-sized strips of silicon, implanting thin, wavy strips of gold to conduct electricity, and mounting the entire circuit in a stretchable, spider web-type mesh of polymer as a support. The researchers embedded the circuit-polyimide structure onto a hollow tube of silicone that had been fashioned in the shape of a finger, and flipped the structure inside out like a sock so that the circuit, which was once on the outside of the tube, was on the inside where it could touch a finger placed against it. The nanoengineers tested the electronic fingers by putting them on and pressing flat objects such as the top of a desk, and they felt mild tingling. The researchers believe this is the first step in creating electronic signals that could be sent to the fingers to virtually recreate sensations such as heat, pressure, and texture. The electronic fingers mold to the shape of the hand, and could be incorporated into a smart glove and used to perform virtual surgical training. Electronic skin could also restore sensation to people who have lost their natural skin, he says, such as burn victims or amputees. It also could be used in Braille readers that allow blind people to browse the Internet. The devices work by sending electric currents to receptors in the skin, which interpret them as real sensations. Read the entire article at: http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/08/smart-fingertips-pave-way-for-vi.html Links: Silicon nanomembranes for fingertip electronics http://iopscience.iop.org/0957-4484/23/34/344004 John Rogers http://rogers.matse.illinois.edu/ Fingertip tingle enhances a surgeon's sense of touch http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22162-fingertip-tingle-enhances-a-surgeons-sense-of-touch.html