Artificial limbs have experience tremendous evolution in their long history. Throughout history, we’ve gone from the peg leg of the Dark Ages to technologically advanced modern day prosthesis that mimic the function of a natural limb. However, most prosthesis still lack a sense of touch.

Zhenan Bao, past ECS member and chemical engineer at Stanford University, is at the forefront of the research looking to change that.

(MORE: Read Bao’s past meeting abstracts in the ECS Digital Library for free.)

Recently on NPR’s All Things Considered, Bao described her work in developing a plastic artificial skin that can essentially do all the things organic skin can do, including sensing and self-healing.

The self-healing plastic Bao uses mimics the electrical properties of silicon and contains a nano-scale pressure sensor. The sensor is then connected to electrical circuits that connect to the brain, transmitting the pressure to the brain to analyze as feeling.

Additionally, the skin is set to be powered by polymers that can turn light into electricity.

While there is still much work to be done, Bao and her colleagues believe that this product could help people who have lost their limbs regain their sense of touch.

The skin is embedded with ultrathin, single crystalline silicone nanoribbon, which enables an array of sensors.
Credit: Kim et al./Nature Communications

We’ve talked about the advancements in prosthetic limbs in the past, but now a group of researchers out of Seoul National University are taking innovation in prosthetics one step further with this new “smart skin.”

Researchers from the Republic of Korea have developed a stretchy synthetic skin embedded with sensors, which will be able to help those with prosthetics regain their sense of touch.

This from “Stretchable silicon nanoribbon electronics for skin prosthesis” in the journal Nature Communications:

This collection of stretchable sensors and actuators facilitate highly localized mechanical and thermal skin-like perception in response to external stimuli, thus providing unique opportunities for emerging classes of prostheses and peripheral nervous system interface technologies.

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