Novel Optical Metrology Tool for Thin Film Haptic Sensor Technologies

Novel display technologies increasingly use haptic materials that permit multifunctional performance that includes mechanical feedback, thermal or optical, roughness or other surface control. There is an exciting range of new materials and materials structures/systems that are being considered for next generation touch screens incorporating haptic style feedback to pressure, temperature, touch for a more positive and rewarding response for the user. These 'active' materials are often based on piezoelectric polymers, thin film piezoelectrics and quantum tunnelling composites. When these materials are stressed, they produce useful electrical currents and when a voltage is applied to them then they produce valuable changes in shape.

One significant barrier to the roll-out of such new technologies is the lack of high activity material suffering from poor reliability and poor uniformity, which becomes really important when those materials are machined and processed at small length scales. As the active materials are integrated within ever more complex designs needed for e.g. touch screens, hydrophones or energy harvesting modules, it becomes imperative to be able to characterise the full 3D volume of those active elements. There are currently no industrially scalable measurement tools which can accurately assess important physical properties from a 3D volume of these active materials.

In this proposal we aim to address this barrier by developing and then commercialising a new measurement tool which has been shown to work in principle following a European Metrology Research Project (2020-ADVENT). Considerable risk still exists because we are unsure if our all-optical probe can be used in conjunction with a new interrogation methodology which would permit rapid and accurate assessment of materials performance, reliability, uniformity and functional properties throughout the 3D volume of the material. Such a tool would be revolutionary in assessing functional materials for these and many other applications where a 2-1/2D to 3D response/feedback is desired. There are no other tools that can accomplish such a solution and Electrosciences Ltd will rapidly commercialise the new product, should this proposal be awarded, and the technical R&D prove successful.

The new tool would accelerate new materials, compositions and systems development cycles, and hence reduce costs, because accurate and traceable measurement data would be available directly linking material to function (e.g. sensing, actuation, transduction) through to integrated design within the new devices. This is how this project would support the UK supply chain supporting haptics and touch screen technologies, hydrophone and the emerging energy harvesting sectors.