Japanese scientist have discovered a way of embedding carbon nanotubes in a rubbery material, which can then be stretched but still retain it’s conductivity. Here’s what they have to say about it:
The elastic conductor would allow electronic circuits to be mounted in places that would have been impossible up to now, including “arbitrary curved surfaces and movable parts, such as the joints of a robot’s arm,” Sekitani and colleagues wrote.
Of course the Japanese would first look to use it in a robot. Not to be outdone, a US team mentioned in that same article has developed an elastic mesh which “allowed them to use standard electronics materials to build an electronic eye camera based on the shape and layout of the human eye.” So Geordi Laforge’s eye implants from the ST movies may be possible in the future. Pretty cool.
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