Mechanically transformative electronics, sensors, and implantable devices

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Abstract

A platform built with novel materials and manufacturing strategies enables electronics adaptable for various applications.

Abstract

Traditionally, electronics have been designed with static form factors to serve designated purposes. This approach has been an optimal direction for maintaining the overall device performance and reliability for targeted applications. However, electronics capable of changing their shape, flexibility, and stretchability will enable versatile and accommodating systems for more diverse applications. Here, we report design concepts, materials, physics, and manufacturing strategies that enable these reconfigurable electronic systems based on temperature-triggered tuning of mechanical characteristics of device platforms. We applied this technology to create personal electronics with variable stiffness and stretchability, a pressure sensor with tunable bandwidth and sensitivity, and a neural probe that softens upon integration with brain tissue. Together, these types of transformative electronics will substantially broaden the use of electronics for wearable and implantable applications.

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Most cited references 26

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An ultra-lightweight design for imperceptible plastic electronics.

Martin Kaltenbrunner, Tsuyoshi Sekitani, Jonathan Reeder … (2013)

Electronic devices have advanced from their heavy, bulky origins to become smart, mobile appliances. Nevertheless, they remain rigid, which precludes their intimate integration into everyday life. Flexible, textile and stretchable electronics are emerging research areas and may yield mainstream technologies. Rollable and unbreakable backplanes with amorphous silicon field-effect transistors on steel substrates only 3 μm thick have been demonstrated. On polymer substrates, bending radii of 0.1 mm have been achieved in flexible electronic devices. Concurrently, the need for compliant electronics that can not only be flexed but also conform to three-dimensional shapes has emerged. Approaches include the transfer of ultrathin polyimide layers encapsulating silicon CMOS circuits onto pre-stretched elastomers, the use of conductive elastomers integrated with organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) on polyimide islands, and fabrication of OFETs and gold interconnects on elastic substrates to realize pressure, temperature and optical sensors. Here we present a platform that makes electronics both virtually unbreakable and imperceptible. Fabricated directly on ultrathin (1 μm) polymer foils, our electronic circuits are light (3 g m(-2)) and ultraflexible and conform to their ambient, dynamic environment. Organic transistors with an ultra-dense oxide gate dielectric a few nanometres thick formed at room temperature enable sophisticated large-area electronic foils with unprecedented mechanical and environmental stability: they withstand repeated bending to radii of 5 μm and less, can be crumpled like paper, accommodate stretching up to 230% on prestrained elastomers, and can be operated at high temperatures and in aqueous environments. Because manufacturing costs of organic electronics are potentially low, imperceptible electronic foils may be as common in the future as plastic wrap is today. Applications include matrix-addressed tactile sensor foils for health care and monitoring, thin-film heaters, temperature and infrared sensors, displays, and organic solar cells.

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An ultra-sensitive resistive pressure sensor based on hollow-sphere microstructure induced elasticity in conducting polymer film.

Lijia Pan, Alex Chortos, Guihua Yu … (2014)

Pressure sensing is an important function of electronic skin devices. The development of pressure sensors that can mimic and surpass the subtle pressure sensing properties of natural skin requires the rational design of materials and devices. Here we present an ultra-sensitive resistive pressure sensor based on an elastic, microstructured conducting polymer thin film. The elastic microstructured film is prepared from a polypyrrole hydrogel using a multiphase reaction that produced a hollow-sphere microstructure that endows polypyrrole with structure-derived elasticity and a low effective elastic modulus. The contact area between the microstructured thin film and the electrodes increases with the application of pressure, enabling the device to detect low pressures with ultra-high sensitivity. Our pressure sensor based on an elastic microstructured thin film enables the detection of pressures of less than 1Pa and exhibits a short response time, good reproducibility, excellent cycling stability and temperature-stable sensing.

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Biomaterials. Electronic dura mater for long-term multimodal neural interfaces.

Ivan Minev, Pavel Musienko, Arthur Hirsch … (2015)

The mechanical mismatch between soft neural tissues and stiff neural implants hinders the long-term performance of implantable neuroprostheses. Here, we designed and fabricated soft neural implants with the shape and elasticity of dura mater, the protective membrane of the brain and spinal cord. The electronic dura mater, which we call e-dura, embeds interconnects, electrodes, and chemotrodes that sustain millions of mechanical stretch cycles, electrical stimulation pulses, and chemical injections. These integrated modalities enable multiple neuroprosthetic applications. The soft implants extracted cortical states in freely behaving animals for brain-machine interface and delivered electrochemical spinal neuromodulation that restored locomotion after paralyzing spinal cord injury.

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Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Sci Adv

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Sci Adv

Journal ID (publisher-id): SciAdv

Journal ID (hwp): advances

Title: Science Advances

Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science

ISSN (Electronic): 2375-2548

Publication date Collection: November 2019

Publication date (Electronic): 01 November 2019

Volume: 5

Issue: 11

Electronic Location Identifier: eaay0418

Affiliations

[1 ]School of Electrical Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea.

[2 ]Welfare & Medical ICT Research Department, Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, Daejeon 34129, Republic of Korea.

[3 ]Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309, USA.

[4 ]Department of Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309, USA.

[5 ]Department of Anesthesiology, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 63110, USA.

[6 ]Department of Pharmaceutical and Administrative Sciences, St. Louis College of Pharmacy, St. Louis, MO 63110, USA.

[7 ]Center for Clinical Pharmacology, St. Louis College of Pharmacy and Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, USA.

[8 ]Washington University Pain Center, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 63110, USA.

[9 ]Department of Psychiatry, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 63110, USA.

[10 ]Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.

[11 ]George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA.

Author notes

[*]

These authors contributed equally to this work.

[† ]Corresponding author. Email: jjeong1@ 123456kaist.ac.kr

Author information

Sang-Hyuk Byun http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0538-2557

Joo Yong Sim http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3779-7589

Zhanan Zhou http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7574-2920

Juhyun Lee http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3913-3332

Raza Qazi http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9491-5783

Matthew P. Haney http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9680-5580

Su Hwan Choi http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7951-9352

John Bilbily http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3514-5248

Shuo Li http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4913-730X

Yuhao Liu http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2442-5690

Woon-Hong Yeo http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5526-3882

Jordan G. McCall http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8295-0664

Jianliang Xiao http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5378-0096

Jae-Woong Jeong http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7607-5453

Article

Publisher ID: aay0418

DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aay0418

PMC ID: 6824851

PubMed ID: 31701008

SO-VID: 8c82284a-6b4f-44c3-abe9-a487bab878ec

Copyright © Copyright © 2019 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC).

License:

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, so long as the resultant use is not for commercial advantage and provided the original work is properly cited.

History

Date received : 14 May 2019

Date accepted : 14 September 2019

Funding

Funded by: doi http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100000025, National Institute of Mental Health;

Award ID: R25 MH112473

Funded by: doi http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100006225, Oak Ridge Associated Universities;

Award ID: Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Award

Funded by: doi http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100003725, National Research Foundation of Korea;

Award ID: NRF-2018R1C1B6001706

Funded by: doi http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100003725, National Research Foundation of Korea;

Award ID: NRF-2018025230

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Mechanically transformative electronics, sensors, and implantable devices

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Paul Drude Institute for Solid State Electronics (PDI)

Most cited references 26

An ultra-lightweight design for imperceptible plastic electronics.

An ultra-sensitive resistive pressure sensor based on hollow-sphere microstructure induced elasticity in conducting polymer film.

Biomaterials. Electronic dura mater for long-term multimodal neural interfaces.

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