Responsive Liquid-Crystal Microlaser Arrays with Tactile Perception

Flexible photonics has the potential to develop artificial skins with superior sensing capabilities. As an essential skin function, the tactile simulation is, however, still challenging due to the difficulty in combining high pressure sensitivity and resolution in sensor networks. Here, this work designs flexible artificial photonic skins for the vivid tactile perception based on responsive cholesteric liquid-crystal (CLC) vertical-cavity microlaser arrays. Controllable liquid-crystal molecule arrangement is explored to synthesize the elastic CLC vertical microcavity lasers, which support a strong correlation between the laser output signals and the external pressures. Large-scale integration of the CLC microlaser-based mechanical sensors enables the spatially resolved detection of pressures. As a proof-of-concept demonstration of vivid tactile simulation, the flexible photonic chip consisting of a CLC microlaser array is used to identify the contact objects. These results present a significant advance in the construction of high-performance flexible optical sensor networks, thus providing valuable guidance for the design of novel photonic skins.