Recently, the Intelligent Medical Imaging (iMED) Group from Suzhou Institute for Advanced Research, University of Science and Technology of China, collaborating with Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Fudan University, created ultrahigh-transparency and pressure-sensitive iontronic device for tactile intelligence and proposed an intelligent solution for the deep integration of haptics and vision in consumer electronics and medical health. The study was published in npj Flexible Electronics.

With the continuous application of flexible electronics, the introduction of highly transparent optical properties in flexible pressure sensors can enable the integration of haptics and vision, bringing new functions and applications. Yet, it is difficult to realize ultrahigh level of optical transparency and device sensitivity in single structure, for the widely used methods for sensitivity improvement, such as elevating the interfacial roughness, may further reduce the transparency.

By utilizing a transparent ionic material with tunable surface topologies, as well as introducing a strategy of refractive index matching, the researchers have proposed a transparent iontronic sensing (TIS) device based on the iontronic sensing mechanism, simultaneously offering combined high device sensitivity (83.9 kPa−1), with ultrahigh optical transparency (96.9%), the highest reported value in literature. 

Benefiting from its comprehensive performance in sensing and optical characteristics, the TIS devices hold enormous potential for the human-machine interfaces for industrial and medical applications, such as on-screen 3D haptic perception, endoscopic head vision-touch fusion diagnosis, invisible wearable health monitoring, etc.

Paper link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41528-022-00162-y