In contrast to sight and hearing, we are relatively weak at recreating the sense of touch. However, an accurate and rich recreation of tactile sensations could have broad implications in human machine interfaces, soft robotics, and disability rehabilitation. While most haptic devices rely on reconfigurable bumps or electrical stimulation, one new possible avenue is to create tactile sensations through materials chemistry.<br/><br/>During touch, friction generated between the finger and object produces a variety of mechanical vibrations, which ultimately forms a tactile perception. In this talk, we describe our efforts to use materials coating to both control touch and to study touch. In the first part, we will discuss our efforts in using silane-derived monolayers and our findings that humans can perceive single atom substitutions within silane-coated silicon wafers, thus opening the possibility for molecular-scale control over touch. In the second part, we use tools from materials chemistry to enable psychophysical investigations on the perception of softness. By creating samples which react to touch in a known manner, we can perform our investigations with high “ecological validity”, i.e., perform studies in a manner similar to everyday human exploration. We will discuss our key findings that the perception of softness is universal between subjects, and thus is a repeatable and controllable tactile sensation. Together, these findings motivate materials chemistry innovations for touch and haptics.

Materials chemistry approaches to study and control human touch

ACS Spring 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.