EU - SmartCore - Smart Core/Shell Nanorods Arrays for Artificial Skin

The goal of this project is to develop a single multi-stimuli responsive material, which would allow a simplification of the artificial skin matrix and enable unprecedented spatial resolution. The material will be comprised of a smart core, responsive to temperature and humidity, and a piezoelectric shell for pressure sensing. The swelling of the smart core upon stimuli will be sensed by the piezoelectric shell and produce a measurable potential. This architecture will be achieved thanks to the use of novel vapor-based technologies for material processing that allow fabrication at the nanoscale. The advantage of using a dry, vapor-based, polymerization for the smart core is that it will be possible to cumulate different functionalities and engineered composition gradients, which are difficult to obtain by conventional synthesis. Nano-structuration of such materials in core-shell site-specific arrays will allow to create a sensing network with spatial resolution down to 1mm and lower. The network will respond to the stimuli coming from the environment and recognize them in terms of location and type of stimuli.