Scientists in Japan have developed a bendable, rubbery material that can conduct electrical currents which could have applications in to devices that can expand and contract, and bend.CHICAGO (Reuters)
- In the latest twist on electronics, Japanese scientists said on
Thursday they have developed a rubbery material that conducts
electricity, a finding that could be used to make devices that bend and
stretch.
The material, described by Tsuyoshi Sekitani of the University of
Tokyo in the journal Science, could be used on curved surfaces or even
in moving parts, they said.
Sekitani's team developed their material using carbon nanotubes, a
long stretch of carbon molecules that can conduct electricity.
They mixed these into rubbery polymer to form the basic material.
Next, they attached a grid of tiny transistors to the material and then
put it to the test.
They stretched the sheet of material to nearly double its original
size and it snapped back into place, without disrupting the transistors
or ruining the material's conductive properties.
The elastic conductor would allow electronic circuits to be mounted
in places that would have been impossible up to now, including
"arbitrary curved surfaces and movable parts, such as the joints of a
robot's arm," Sekitani and colleagues wrote.
Earlier this week, a U.S. team reported developing an elastic mesh
material that allowed them to use standard electronics materials to
build an electronic eye camera based on the shape and layout of the
human eye.
That device could be the basis for the development of an artificial eye implant.
John Rogers of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who
wrote about the eye camera in the journal Nature, said the development
of materials that can be shaped and molded to curved surfaces will
allow for a whole new class of electronics devices that can be used to
better interact with the human body, such as brain monitoring devices.
(Editing by Maggie Fox)
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