Height-renderable morphable tactile display enabled by programmable modulation of local stiffness in photothermally active polymer

Inwook Hwang, Seongcheol Mun, Jung-Hwan Youn, Hyeong Jun Kim, Seung Koo Park, Meejeong Choi, Tae June Kang, Qibing Pei and Sungryul Yun ()
Additional contact information
Inwook Hwang: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
Seongcheol Mun: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
Jung-Hwan Youn: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
Hyeong Jun Kim: Inha University
Seung Koo Park: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
Meejeong Choi: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
Tae June Kang: Inha University
Qibing Pei: Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, University of California
Sungryul Yun: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute

Nature Communications, 2024, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-13

Abstract: Abstract Reconfigurable tactile displays are being used to provide refreshable Braille information; however, the delivered information is currently limited to an alternative of Braille because of difficulties in controlling the deformation height. Herein, we present a photothermally activated polymer-bilayer-based morphable tactile display that can programmably generate tangible three-dimensional topologies with varying textures on a thin film surface. The morphable tactile display was composed of a heterogeneous polymer structure that integrated a stiffness-tunable polymer into a light-absorbing elastomer, near-infra-red light-emitting diode (NIR-LED) array, and small pneumatic chamber. Topological expression was enabled by producing localized out-of-plane deformation that was reversible, height-adjustable, and latchable in response to light-triggered stiffness modulation at each target area under switching of stationary pneumatic pressure. Notably, the tactile display could express a spatial softness map of the latched topology upon re-exposing the target areas to modulated light from the NIR-LED array. We expect the developed tactile display to open a pathway for generating high-dimensional tactile information on electronic devices and enable realistic interaction in augmented and virtual environments.

Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-46709-7 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:15:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-024-46709-7

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-46709-7

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().