Multimodal, High-Resolution Imaging System Based on Stimuli-Responsive Polymers

Abstract:

Providing realistic impressions about a virtual ambient for interaction with human’s auditory, visual, and tactile perception is one of the core challenges of modern imaging systems. However, particularly tactile displays with high spatial resolution implemented as a large-scale integrated microelectromechanical system are not yet realized. Here, we report on a multimodal display with thousands of actuator pixels, which generates both visual and tactile impressions of a virtual surface. The fully polymeric, monolithically integrated device consists of an actuator array made from poly(N-isopropylacrylamide). This material is a stimuli-responsive, particularly temperature-sensitive hydrogel. Controlling the actuator temperature via an optoelectrothermic interface between an upper and lower temperature the actuator can be switched from the swollen to the shrunken state (volume change up to 90%) in several hundred milliseconds. To benefit from this highly dynamic behaviour it is necessary to use a control unit which provides the required temperature changes also in the range of milliseconds. For characterizing the time behaviour of our optoelectrothermic control unit we use the change in transparency of PNIPAAm caused by the phase transition. In this paper we preferably discuss the time behaviour of the display devices.

• Periodical: Advances in Science and Technology (Volume 82)
• Pages: 44-49
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/AST.82.44
• Online since: September 2012
• Authors: Georgi Paschew, Rene Körbitz, Andreas Richter
• Keywords: High Resolution Temperature Field, MEMS, Micro-Actuator Array, Stimuli-Responsive Hydrogel, Tactile Display

References

[1] Jones, L. A., Sarter, N. B., Tactile Displays: Guidance for Their Design and Application , Human Factors , 50 (2008), 90-111.

DOI: 10.1518/001872008x250638

[2] a) TANAKA, T., Collapse of Gels and Critical Endpoint, Physical Review Letters, 40 (1978), 820-823. b) Suzuki,H.; Tokuda, T.; Kobayashi, K., A disposable "intelligent mosquito" with a reversible sampling mechanism usingthe volume-phase transition of a gel, Sens. .Actuator B, 83 (2002), 53-59.

DOI: 10.1016/s0925-4005(01)01028-0

[3] a) Kuhn, W.; Hargitay, B.; Katchalsky, A.; Eisenberg, H., Reversible Dilation and Contraction By Changing the State of Ionization of High-polymer Acid Networks, Nature, 165 (1950), 514-516. b) Irie, M.; Misumi, Y.; Tanaka, T., Stimuli-responsive Polymers - Chemical-induced Reversible Phase-separation of An Aqueous-solution of Poly(n-isopropylacrylamide) With Pendent Crown-ether Groups, Polymer, 34 (1993), 4531-4535. c) Tanaka, T.; Wang, C. N.; Pande, V.; Grosberg, A. Y.; English, A.; Masamune, S.; Gold, H.; Levy, R.; King, K., Polymer gels that can recognize and recover molecules, Faraday Discussions, 101 (1995), 201-206. d) Li, W.; Zhao, H.; Teasdale, P. R.; John, R.; Zhang, S., Synthesis and characterisation of a polyacrylamide-polyacrylic acid copolymer hydrogel for environmental analysis of Cu and Cd, React. Funct. Polym., 52 (2002), 31-41.

DOI: 10.1016/0032-3861(93)90160-c

[4] Richter, A., Paschew, G., Optoelectrothermic Control of Highly Integrated Polymer-Based MEMS Applied in an Artificial Skin, Adv. Mater., 21 (2009), 979-983

DOI: 10.1002/adma.200802737

[5] Paschew, G., Richter, A., High-resolution tactile display opeated by an integrated "Smart Hydrogel" actuator array, Proceedings of the SPIE, 7642 (2010)

DOI: 10.1117/12.848811