Supramolecular Coupling Effect Enhanced Highly Transparent, Conductive Ionic Skin for Underwater Sensory and Interactive Robotics

Abstract

Abstract Soft electronics based on polymeric gels with unique optical, mechanical and electrical properties are of crucial importance in marine resource exploration. Hydrophobic fluorinated ionogel that combines with optical transparency, flexibility and conductivity is considered a promising potential. However, current soft ionogels struggle to meet the requirements of high electrical conductivity, transparency and perception sensitivity in the aquatic environment. Herein, a novel fluorinated polymeric ionogel is developed incorporated with tert‐butyl groups and hydrophobic ionic liquid. Benefiting from the strong supramolecular dipole interaction of fluorine atoms and the hydrogen bond of tert‐butyl ester, this designed polymeric ionogel exhibits both high transparency (96.38%) and enhanced ion mobility (1.74 mS cm −1 ). To further achieve high sensitivity, a suspended 3D morphing mechanism is proposed to construct an underwater camouflage skin with ultra‐high underwater sensitivity (≈2.9 Pa), which enables capturing flow field gradients, tracking biological motion, and precisely localizing disturbance sources. As a demo, the ionogel‐based suspended underwater electronic device is integrated into a dolphin‐inspired untethered robot and further showed the closed‐loop control capability of danger perception, decision and autonomous avoidance, demonstrating significant promise in underwater bionic electronics and intelligent robotics.