Human
skin is a unique functional material that perfectly covers body parts
having various complicated shapes, spontaneously heals mechanical
damage, and senses a touch. E-skin devices have been actively researched,
focusing on the sensing functionality of skin. However, most e-skin
devices still have limitations in their shapes, and it is a challenging
issue of interest to realize multiple functionalities in one device
as human skin does. Here, new artificial skin devices are demonstrated
in application-oriented three-dimensional (3D) shapes, which can sense
exact touch location and heal mechanical damage spontaneously. Beyond
the conventional film-type e-skin devices, the artificial skin devices
are fabricated in optimal three-dimensional structures, via systematic
material design and characterization of ion-conductive self-healing
hydrogel system and its extrusion-based 3D printing. The ring-shaped
and fingertip-shaped artificial skin devices are successfully fabricated
to fit perfectly on finger models, and shows large electronic signal
contrast, ∼5.4 times increase in current, upon a human finger
contact. Furthermore, like human skin, the device provides the exact
positional information of an arbitrary touch location on a three-dimensional
artificial skin device without complicated device fabrication or data
processing.
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