Researchers develop a new wearable touchpad to help you write, play games

Researchers have developed a highly stretchable touch panel that can be used to write words and play electronic games, an advance that could lead to flexible and wearable devices with a variety of applications.

While various types of conductors such as carbon nanotubes and metal nanowires have been explored for stretchy touchpads, they are all based on hard materials. To help solve this problem, Chong-Chan Kim from Seoul National University in South Korea and colleagues developed a touchpad made of hydrogel, a network of hydrophilic polymers that are soft and very stretchable.

They used a polyacrylamide hydrogel containing lithium chloride salts, which act as a conductor and help retain water in the hydrogel. “Electrodes on the ends of the hydrogel panel apply similar voltages, which creates a uniform electrostatic field across the system,” researchers wrote in the journal Science.