The screens are patterned with tiny pixels that expand outward yielding bumps when illuminated, enabling the display of dynamic graphical animations that can be seen with the eyes and felt with the hand. This technology could one day enable high-definition visual-haptic touch screens for automobiles, mobile computing or intelligent architectural walls.
屏幕上有微小的像素图案，当被照亮时，这些像素会向外扩展，产生凸起，从而显示出可以用眼睛看到和用手感觉到的动态图形动画。这项技术有一天可以为汽车、移动计算或智能建筑墙壁提供高清视觉触觉触摸屏。
Max Linnander, a PhD candidate in the RE Touch Lab of mechanical engineering professor Yon Visell, led the research, which appeared this month in the journal Science Robotics.
马克斯·林纳德（Max Linnander）是机械工程教授约恩·维塞尔（Yon Visell）的RE触摸实验室的博士候选人，他领导了这项研究，该研究发表在本月的《科学机器人》杂志上。
Visell proposed a challenge to Linnander when he first arrived at UCSB, in late September 2021. “The question was simple enough: Could the light that forms an image be converted into something that can be felt?” Linnander said.
2021年9月底，林纳德刚到UCSB时，维塞尔向他提出了一个挑战。“问题很简单：形成图像的光能否转化为可以感知的东西？”Linnander说。
“We didn’t know if it was feasible,” added Visell. “The possibility that it might be impossible — and the very idea of enabling people to ‘feel light’ — made the question irresistible.”
“我们不知道这是否可行，”维塞尔补充道。“这种不可能实现的可能性，以及让人们‘感觉轻松’的想法，让这个问题变得不可抗拒。”
The team spent nearly a year testing their idea, during which they worked through the theoretical underpinnings and conducted computer simulations. With a viable concept in hand, they then began to develop prototypes in the laboratory. Months passed without success.
该团队花了将近一年的时间来测试他们的想法，在此期间，他们研究了理论基础并进行了计算机模拟。有了一个可行的概念，他们就开始在实验室里开发原型。几个月过去了，没有成功。
Then, in December 2022, Linnander brought Visell into the lab. “I’d been working on this for a year. I was going to leave for the airport in a few hours, and I had just gotten my latest prototype up and running,” he said. He showed Visell his simple, functional prototype — a single pixel excited by brief light flashes from a small diode laser, with no other electronics.
然后，在2022年12月，林纳德把维塞尔带进了实验室。“我已经为此工作了一年。再过几个小时我就要去机场了，我刚刚把我最新的原型机启动并运行起来，”他说。他向维塞尔展示了他的简单、实用的原型——一个由小型二极管激光器发出的短暂闪光激发的单个像素，没有其他电子设备。
“I put my finger on the pixel and felt a clear tactile pulse whenever the light flashed,” Visell recalled. “That was a special moment — the moment we knew the core idea could work.”
“我把手指放在像素上，每当灯光闪烁时，我就能感觉到清晰的触觉脉冲，”维塞尔回忆说。“那是一个特殊的时刻——我们知道核心理念可以实现的时刻。”
At the heart of the technology are thin display surfaces that integrate arrays of millimeter‑sized optotactile pixels. The pixels are individually controlled by projected light from the low-power laser, a form of optical addressing. The same light source powers the pixels, which contains an air‑filled cavity and a suspended thin graphite film. The film absorbs incoming light, and rapidly rises in temperature which, in turn, heats the captive air. The air expands, and the pixel’s top surface deflects outward by as much as one millimeter — yielding an easily perceptible bump above the illuminated pixel.
该技术的核心是集成了毫米级光触觉像素阵列的薄显示表面。像素由来自低功率激光的投射光单独控制，这是一种光学寻址形式。同样的光源驱动像素，像素包含一个充满空气的腔和一个悬浮的石墨薄膜。薄膜吸收入射光，并迅速升温，从而加热捕获的空气。空气膨胀，像素的顶部表面向外偏转多达一毫米，在被照亮的像素上方形成一个容易察觉的凸起。
The process is so fast that scanning a light beam across many pixels in succession yields dynamic graphics — contours, moving shapes, characters — that can be both seen and felt. The refresh rate is fast enough to enable animations to look and feel continuous, as with familiar video displays.
这个过程是如此之快，以至于连续扫描一束光在许多像素上产生动态图形-轮廓，移动的形状，字符-既可以看到也可以感觉到。刷新率足够快，使动画看起来和感觉上是连续的，就像我们熟悉的视频显示一样。
Because light provides both illumination and power delivery, the display surfaces require no embedded wiring or electronics. Instead, a small scanning laser sweeps the surface at high speed, illuminating each pixel for a fraction of a second.
由于光既提供照明又提供电力，因此显示表面不需要嵌入电线或电子设备。取而代之的是，一个小型的扫描激光以高速扫描表面，在几分之一秒的时间内照亮每个像素。
The technology is also scalable: the team has demonstrated devices with more than 1,500 independently addressable pixels — significantly more than comparable tactile displays reported to date, Linnander said. Far larger formats are possible, he added, including displays that leverage modern laser video projectors.
该技术还具有可扩展性：该团队已经展示了具有超过1500个独立可寻址像素的设备——比迄今为止报道的同类触觉显示器要多得多，Linnander说。他补充说，更大的格式是可能的，包括利用现代激光视频投影仪的显示器。
The researchers also studied what users perceived when interacting with the displays. Using touch, participants in their study were able to accurately report the location of individually illuminated pixels with millimeter precision, could accurately perceive moving graphics, and were easily able to discriminate spatial and temporal patterns. The researchers emphasize that these findings indicate the system is able to produce a wide variety of tactile content.
研究人员还研究了用户在与显示器互动时的感受。在他们的研究中，通过触摸，参与者能够以毫米的精度准确地报告单个照明像素的位置，能够准确地感知移动的图形，并且能够很容易地区分空间和时间模式。研究人员强调，这些发现表明该系统能够产生各种各样的触觉内容。
While the team’s findings stand out among prior display technologies, Visell noted that the idea of turning light into mechanical action has noteworthy antecedents. In the 19th century, Alexander Graham Bell and others used focused sunlight, modulated by the blades of a rotating fan, to excite sound in air-filled test tubes. The same physical principles underlie the optotactile pixels have now been applied to a digital display technology.
虽然该团队的发现在先前的显示技术中脱颖而出，但Visell指出，将光转化为机械作用的想法有值得注意的先例。19世纪，亚历山大·格雷厄姆·贝尔（Alexander Graham Bell）等人利用旋转风扇叶片调制的聚焦阳光，在充满空气的试管中激发声音。光触觉像素背后的相同物理原理现在已经应用于数字显示技术。
These visual‑tactile displays could find uses across many domains. Visell envisions that the technology could be used to create automotive touchscreens that emulate physical controls, electronic books with tangible illustrations that come to life on the page, and architectural surfaces for mixed reality, bridging the digital and physical worlds.
这些视觉触觉显示器可以在许多领域找到用途。Visell设想，这项技术可以用于制造模拟物理控制的汽车触摸屏，带有在页面上栩栩如生的有形插图的电子书，以及用于混合现实的建筑表面，连接数字世界和物理世界。
Whatever the future may hold, the technology his team has invented embodies a simple, intriguing idea: anything you see, you can also feel.
无论未来如何，他的团队发明的技术体现了一个简单而有趣的想法：你看到的任何东西，你也能感觉到。
