Recently, the research group led by Professor Guangming Chen from College of Materials Science and Engineering of Shenzhen University has published a research article in Advanced Materials, a top-tier journal in materials science, entitled “Bimodal Thermoelectric/AIE E-Skin Decouples Contact-Area Ambiguity for Concurrent Pain Perception and Injury Mapping”. This study investigates a bimodal thermoelectric/aggregation-induced emission (AIE) e-skin to realize simultaneous thermo-pain perception and injury mapping with contact-area decoupling. Co-first authors are Bingchen Huo and Fengxia Kuang, joint-training graduate students. Corresponding authors include Professor Guangming Chen and Associate Researcher Chunyu Du from College of Materials Science and Engineering of Shenzhen University, together with Professor Cun-Yue Guo from University of Chinese Academy of Sciences. Shenzhen University serves as the primary affiliation for this work.
In the field of bionic sensing, thermoreceptive electronic skins suffer from a fundamental challenge: signal ambiguity originating from the contact-area effect of thermoelectric devices. Since electrical output depends on total heat flux, localized high-temperature stimuli and large-area low-temperature stimuli produce indistinguishable signals, leading to unreliable thermal-hazard evaluation. Such “contact-area ambiguity” severely hinders practical deployment of existing thermosensitive e-skins in robots, wearable electronics and prosthetic systems.
In this work, a bimodal bilayer e-skin was developed by integrating a single-walled carbon-nanotube-based thermoelectric layer and an aggregation-induced-emission (AIE)-luminogen-based photoluminescent layer. The bottom thermoelectric layer acts as a fast-response nociceptor that converts temperature gradients into voltage-encoded “pain” signals. Via photoluminescence quenching, the top AIE layer delivers contact-area-independent optical mapping of thermal fields, enabling direct visual decoupling between temperature and contact area without computational post-processing. The integrated platform achieves real-time injury visualization, accurate temperature recognition (accuracy > 97%), and reliable nociception-like sensing. Validated on a bionic robot reflex system, the proposed e-skin provides a feasible technical solution for intelligent safety protection and enhanced human-machine interaction.
The core innovation lies in its bionic bilayer architecture. The top photoluminescent (PL) layer reproduces injury traces through thermally triggered photoluminescence quenching and offers visual evidence for the spatial footprint of heat sources. The bottom thermoelectric layer mimics biological nociceptors to generate electrical signals via the thermoelectric effect; meanwhile, an energy-filtering effect further improves sensing sensitivity. Under heating or cooling conditions, the PL layer affords real-time spatially-resolved visualization of thermal damage, whereas the thermoelectric layer delivers fast neural-like electrical responses. By combining epidermal spatial visualization with dermal pain perception, the e-skin accomplishes three key functions: thermal-injury visualization, temperature recognition and nociceptor-mimicking sensing.
The bimodal e-skin architecture proposed herein addresses the long-standing contact-area-ambiguity bottleneck in thermoelectric sensing. It offers new insights for improving safety, situational awareness and adaptive performance of next-generation soft robots and human-machine-interaction systems.
This research was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Shenzhen Science and Technology Program, and Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation.
Article Link:
https://advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.73540
Proofread by: Xiaoying Zhang, Dong Wang, Lei Wang
