Spidroin Composite Biomimetic Multifunctional Skin with Meta-Structure

Whether for organic life or intelligent machines (robots, Actuators), skin plays an important role as a barrier and sensor, and a lot of research is centered on making multifunctional skins. Here, the authors report an electronic skin with high stretchability, excellent mechanical sensing, and biochemical detection capabilities obtained by combining photonic crystals and sponge-like filled liquid metal (LM)–polyurethane (PU)–spidroin (SP) composite materials. Inspired by geckos and mussels, a micropillar array is designed and coated with polydopamine to synergistically improve adhesion. P(MMA-BA) elastic copolymer nanoparticles (are assembled into a photonic crystal pattern to endow electronic skin biochemical detection capabilities. The regionalization of the photonic crystal pattern allows the electronic skin to detect multiple target compounds simultaneously. The base material is an LM–PU–SP composite material with excellent stretchability and pressure sensitivity and is used for motion monitoring and tactile sensing. It is envisioned that this multifunctional electronic skin can be attached to animal skins for health monitoring to facilitate the diagnosis of metabolic diseases and wound inflammation. Alternatively, electronic skins can be attached to robots and soft robots for the collection of samples from heavily polluted areas, to obtain real-time feedback information during the collection process.