Silicone films for artificial muscles

Researchers of the University of Basel and Empa have gotten a step closer to engineering artificial muscles: they have developed a method to generate nanometer-thin silicone films. Elastomers, which can transform electrical energy into mechanical energy, have a wide variety of applications, i.e. powering windscreen wipers, sound generation, and operating camera lenses. By surrounding the synthetic material with electrodes and applying operation voltage, it expands laterally. In the field of medicine, this principle is promising for the development of artificial muscles for treating severe incontinence, as the consortium recently communicated. To provide the necessary strain, micrometer-thick silicone layers need an operation voltage of several hundred volts, which is by far too high for applications within the human body. In contrast, nanometer-thin layers require only a few volts. To generate forces necessary to reach continence, several thousand layers have to be put on top of each other.