Seoul, Jul 6 (IANS): Scientists have developed a flexible and transparent smartphone fingerprint scanner that can even measure your temperature and pressure to make sure that the fingerprint placed on the scanner is actually that of a human.

Another advantage of the new sensor, developed by scientists from the Samsung Display-UNIST Centre at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea, is that it enables the detection of a finger pressing on the display itself, the authors said.

Currently, as the authors correctly pointed out in their study published in the journal Nature Communications, the capacitive fingerprint sensors used in smartphones are still opaque, and placed either within an activation button or in areas on the back of these devices.

The development of fingerprint sensors within a display is highly sought after as it has the potential to improve design of samrtphones.

"These invisible sensors can allow users to simply place their finger on the screen and identify the print, rather than on a button," the study said.

Transparent, flexible electrodes of this multifunctional sensor array were formed using random networks of a hybrid nanostructure based on ultra-long silver nanofibers and fine silver nanowires, the researchers said.

However, the sensor is designed to prevent fingerprint forgery carried out by using artificial fingerprints, not to inform if a person has fever or not.