Transparent Active Skin

Abstract

In this paper we present a transparent and stretchable dielectric elastomer actuator(DEA). The device, called "active skin" is under development as a new means of human interfaces. The active skin consists of elastomeric films sandwiched between compliant patterned electrodes. Thus, depending on the properties of the elastomer or electrodes, it is possible to realize a wide variety of implementations as transducers. As a critical issue of the transparent active skin, transparency in the electrode including that of the substrate is challenging, which has not been solved yet. In this paper, a compliant, transparent and highly conductive electrode layer on the elastomeric film by using graphene is presented. The fabrication method of graphene electrodes dedicated to the elastomeric materials is addressed and its compatibility to the existing materials is discussed. Also, preliminary implementations on the embossed actuator are given to validate the proposed idea.