Imagine an automobile crash test that uses test dummies painted all over with a substance that can change color according to the levels of stress that various parts of the dummies’ bodies will endure. Such a “color map” could provide vital information to engineers designing safer automobiles. Or imagine baseball gloves that when worn show the batters if they are using the appropriate amount of pressure to grip their bats, resulting in better performance. New technology developed at the University of California, Riverside may now make the above and similar ideas a reality. Indeed, the technology could be applied to improve everyday devices, such as smartphones, that for operation rely on the right amount of pressure applied to them. “We have developed a high-resolution pressure sensor that indicates pressure by varying its color—a sensor that all of us can use with just our eyes,” said Yadong Yin, an associate professor of chemistry, whose lab led the research. The lab used a self-assembly method to string together gold nanoparticles which they then embedded into a polymer film. The film deformed when pressed, stretching the gold nanoparticle strings by increasing the separation between neighboring gold nanoparticles. Read more at: Phys.org
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