Artificial magnetoreception is a new and yet to be explored path for humans to interact with our surroundings. This technology is enabled by thin film magnetic field sensors embedded in a soft and flexible format to constitute magnetosensitive electronic skins (e-skins). Being limited by the sensitivity to in-plane magnetic fields, magnetosensitive e-skins are restricted to basic proximity and angle sensing and are not used as switches or logic elements of interactive wearable electronics.

In this work, an international team of researchers from different institutions (HZDR, Germany; CNR-ISM nM2-Lab, Italy; Un. Augsburg, Germany; NTUU KPI, Ukraine; Politech. Milano, Italy; Un. Politc. Marche, Italy) demonstrated a novel magnetoreceptive platform for on-skin touchless interactive electronics based on flexible spin valve switches with the sensitivity to out-of-plane magnetic fields. The technology relies on all-metal Co/Pd-based spin valves with a synthetic antiferromagnetic reference layer possessing perpendicular magnetic anisotropy. The flexible magnetoreceptors act as logic elements, namely momentary and permanent (latching) switches. The switches maintain their performance even upon severe bending to a radius of less than 5 mm and withstand repetitive bending for hundreds of cycles. The researchers integrated the flexible switches in on-skin interactive electronics and demonstrated their performance as touchless human-machine interfaces, which are intuitive to use, energy efficient, and insensitive to external magnetic disturbances. This technology, based on a material designed by the nM2-Lab group, offers qualitatively new functionalities for electronic skins and paves the way towards full-fledged on-skin touchless interactive electronics.

#flexible-spintronics, #e-skin

Contact Person: Gaspare Varvaro