Self-healing UI: Mechanically and Electrically Self-healing Materials for Sensing and Actuation Interfaces

Living things in nature have long been utilizing the ability to “heal” their wounds on the soft bodies to survive in the outer environment. In order to impart this self-healing property to our daily life interface, we propose Self-healing UI, a soft-bodied interface that can intrinsically self-heal damages without external stimuli or glue. The key material to achieving Self-healing UI is MWCNTs-PBS, a composite material of a self-healing polymer polyborosiloxane (PBS) and a filler material multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), which retain mechanical and electrical self-healability. We developed a hybrid model that combines PBS, MWCNTs-PBS, and other common soft materials including fabric and silicone to build interface devices with self-healing, sensing, and actuation capability. These devices were implemented by layer-by-layer stacking fabrication without glue or any post-processing, by leveraging the materials’ inherent self-healing property between two layers. We then demonstrated sensing primitives and interactive applications that extend the design space of soft interface with their ability to transform, conform, reconfigure, heal, and fuse, which we believe can enrich the toolbox of human-computer interaction (HCI).