COVID-19 pandemic has clearly brought focus to the potential spread of infections through touching objects or any surface like touch screen devices like self-service kiosks, ATMs, etc. In a bid to overcome this problem, Indian Scientists have provided an affordable solution to develop a low-cost touch-cum-proximity sensor popularly called touchless touch sensor through a printing technique.
scientists from the Centre for Nano and Soft Matter Sciences (CeNS), and Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced and Scientific Research (JNCASR), autonomous institutes of the Department of Science & Technology (DST), Government of India, has set up a semi-automated production plant for the production of printing-aided patterned (resolution of around 300 µm) transparent electrodes, which has the potential for being utilized in advanced touchless screen technologies.
This work by the team led by Prof. G U Kulkarni and co-workers and funded by DST-Nanomission at CeNS has been published recently in the journal ‘Materials Letters’ recently. Dr. Ashutosh K Singh, a scientist working on this project, said, “We have fabricated a touch sensor which senses a proximal or hover touch even from a distance of 9 cm from the device”.
“We are making a few more prototypes using our patterned electrodes to prove their feasibility for other smart electronic applications. These patterned electrodes can be made available to interested industries and R&D labs on a request basis to explore collaborative projects,” said Dr. Indrajit Mondal, another co-author in the research.
The novel low-cost patterned transparent electrodes have tremendous potential to be used in advanced smart electronic devices like touchless screens and sensors. This touchless touch sensor technology could assist in preventing the spread of viruses that spread through contact.