The new material can be an excellent ... Flexible and sturdy, it protects, says even a weak pressure - and easy to tolerate even a very strong.
Development of a group of American engineers Chzhenan Bao (Zhenan Bao) may one day appear in a variety of devices and appliances we use every day, or will use in the future - from smartphones with touch screens to robots. Everyone can come in handy flexible and durable, pressure-sensitive ...
Of course, not without carbon nanotubes, hollow cylinders with walls just one atom thick, the order of nanometers in diameter. We obtain a new material by spraying a suspension of nanotubes on top of a thin and transparent layer of silicone. Nanotubes are deposited with random tangled conglomerates, but if you stretch the substrate, many of them pull in and orient more or less parallel to each other. And if the substrate is then elastically return to its original form, this orientation will continue. The operation should be repeated in the perpendicular direction, and then part of the nanotubes perpendicular to the orientation and will keep it. The result is a thin silicon substrate coated with ...
Now take two such layers, and add them together inside the nanotubes, paving another layer of silicone. It's done - we have a perspective ... Moreover, it can act as a capacitor with conductive layers of the nanotubes, and laid between the elastic silicone. If we apply a compressive force to the material, the inner layer of silicone shrinks, and the ability to store charge is reduced and this effect is very easy to detect, thus using a different material as the pressure sensor.
Of course, change the properties of the capacitor and a simple extension of the material, which also leads to a thinning of the middle layer of silicone. However, the pressure and tension is easily distinguished by the characteristics of changes in the characteristics of the capacitor.
