Magnetic sense for humans gets within reach
Magnetoception is a sense which allows bacteria, insects and even vertebrates like birds and sharks to detect magnetic fields for orientation and navigation. Humans are however unable to perceive magnetic fields naturally. Dr. Denys Makarov and his team from the Leibniz-Institute for Solid-State and Materials Research (IFW) in Dresden have developed an electronic skin with a magneto-sensory system that equips the recipient with a “sixth sense” able to perceive the presence of magnetic fields.
The magneto-electronic sensors are less than two micrometres thick and weight only three gram per square meter; they can even float on a soap bubble.
With a thickness of just 2 µm and an incredibly low weight of only three grams per square metre, the sensors can even float on a soap bubble. Nevertheless, they are robust enough to survive extreme bending with radii of less than 3 µm, and survive crumpling like a piece of paper without sacrificing the sensor performance. On elastic supports like a rubber band, they can be stretched to more than 270 % and for over 1,000 cycles without fatigue. These features are imparted to the magnetoelectronic elements by their ultra-thin polymeric support.
“We have demonstrated an on-skin touch-less human-machine interaction platform, motion and displacement sensorics applicable for soft robots or functional medical implants as well as magnetic functionalities for electronics on the skin”, says Michael Melzer, the PhD student of the ERC group led by Denys Makarov concentrating on the realization of flexible and stretchable magnetoelectronics.
Due to their robustness and flexibility, these magnetic sensors are suited to be wearable, yet unobtrusive and imperceptible for orientation and manipulation aids, believes professor Oliver G. Schmidt, director of the Institute for Integrative Nanosciences at the IFW.
This work was carried out at the Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research (IFW Dresden) and the TU Chemnitz in close collaboration with partners at the University of Tokyo and Osaka University in Japan. The original work was published in Nat. Commun. 6, 6080 (2015).
More information: https://www.ifw-dresden.de/en/
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