Self-Powered All-Optical Tactile Sensing Platform for User-Interactive Interface

User-interactive interfaces, converting tactile stimuli into readable signals to users and devices simultaneously, improve the communication and interaction between human and machines and therefore greatly contribute to the safety and dexterity during the interactions. However, the concomitant challenges of current user-interactive interfaces such as complex architecture, massive electrodes and fussy cable connections, bulky and unhandy power supply, and deficiency in multistimuli responses have yet to be solved. Herein, an all-optical tactile sensing platform consisting of heterogeneous mechanoluminescent materials and polymer matrix is proposed for the conversion of multiple tactile stimuli into heterochromatic lights in an untethered and self-powered manner. The all-optical tactile sensing platform can respond to tiny shear force such as fingertip slipping with a low limit of 2 N and wide range of strains ranging from 30% to 70% with appropriate discrimination. Most importantly, the visualization of tactile stimuli with human- and machine-readability and vividness permit remote and wireless user-interactive applications such as videogames and RC car control, assisted with the developed method of active optical signal recognition. This work presents a paradigm shift to user-interactive interfaces, boosting their implementation in multitudinous areas such as artificial intelligences and the Internet of Things.