Robot skin made of organic and inorganic materials

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Thin skin will help robots 'feel':

"Japanese researchers have developed a flexible artificial skin that could give robots a humanlike sense of touch. The team manufactured a type of 'skin' capable of sensing pressure and another capable of sensing temperature.

"These are supple enough to wrap around robot fingers and relatively cheap to make, the researchers have claimed.

"The University of Tokyo team describe their work in the latest issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences....

"The researchers explain how pressure-sensing and temperature-sensing networks can be laminated together, forming an artificial skin that can detect both properties simultaneously....

"The transistors used in the circuits and the semiconductors both use 'organic' materials based on chains of carbon atoms."