Sensory receptors in human skin transmit a wealth of tactile and thermal signals from external environments to the brain. Despite advances in our understanding of mechano-and thermosensation, replication of these unique sensory characteristics in artificial skin and prosthetics remains challenging. Recent efforts to develop smart prosthetics, which exploit rigid and/or semi-flexible pressure, strain and temperature sensors, provide promising routes for sensor-laden bionic systems, but with limited stretchability, detection range and spatiotemporal resolution. Here we demonstrate smart prosthetic skin instrumented with ultrathin, single crystalline silicon nanoribbon strain, pressure and temperature sensor arrays as well as associated humidity sensors, electroresistive heaters and stretchable multi-electrode arrays for nerve stimulation. This collection of stretchable sensors and actuators facilitate highly localized mechanical and thermal skin-like perception in response to external stimuli, thus providing unique opportunities for emerging classes of prostheses and peripheral nervous system interface technologies.

exhibits high potential for a wide range of bio-electronics applications that need to be mechanically deformable, such as personalized healthcare systems, [4,5] wearable smart displays, [6][7][8] and implantable prosthetic devices, [9][10][11] while rigid electronics suffer in fully exhibiting their original performance on such applications.The evolution of stretchable electronics was initially driven by advancements in human bio-signal sensing technologies. A variety of stretchable sensors, such as thermal sensors (e.g., temperature, thermal conductivity), [12][13][14] mechanical sensors (e.g., strain, pressure), [15][16][17] optical sensors (e.g., pulse oximetry, photoplethysmogram (PPG)), [6,18,19] electrophysiology (EP) sensors (e.g., electroencephalogram (EEG), electrocardiogram (ECG)), [20][21][22] and biochemical sensors (e.g., glucose, pH), [23][24][25][26] have been developed aided by unconventional electronic materials and device designs. As these stretchable sensors tend to mimic the unique mechanical properties of soft and deformable human tissues, stable conformal contact between these sensors and human skin and/or internal organs is achievable. This unique biotic/abiotic interfacing results in outstanding sensing accuracies and extraordinary signal-to-noise ratios that surpass the performance of rigid bio-sensing devices.As stretchable sensor technology has evolved, there has been a growing demand for other stretchable electronic components capable of processing signals retrieved from stretchable sensors. The stretchable electronics research direction has therefore moved toward building stretchable integrated electronic systems that consist not only of stretchable sensory components, but also of other advanced stretchable electronic components for signal processing, feedback actuation, real-time display, wireless communication, and power supply. [27,28] Considerable research effort has been devoted by material scientists and device engineers to achieving fully integrated stretchable electronic systems.The research approaches to such stretchable sensors, additional electronic components, and fully integrated systems are largely categorized by two strategies, namely the "structurebased" and "material-based" approaches. For the structurebased approach, technologies for conventional electronics are utilized to build stretchable electronic systems in which the superb performance of conventional electronics can be fully Stretchable electronics are mechanically compatible with a variety of objects, especially with the soft curvilinear contours of the human body, enabling human-friendly electronics applications that could not be achieved with conventional rigid electronics. Therefore, extensive research effort has been devoted to the development of stretchable electronics, from research on materials and unit device, to fully integrated systems. In particular, material-processing technologies that encompass the synthesis, assembly, and patterning of intrinsically stretchable electronic materials have been ac...

Skin electronics require stretchable conductors that satisfy metallike conductivity, high stretchability, ultrathin thickness, and facile patternability, but achieving these characteristics simultaneously is challenging. We present a float assembly method to fabricate a nanomembrane that meets all these requirements. The method enables a compact assembly of nanomaterials at the water–oil interface and their partial embedment in an ultrathin elastomer membrane, which can distribute the applied strain in the elastomer membrane and thus lead to a high elasticity even with the high loading of the nanomaterials. Furthermore, the structure allows cold welding and bilayer stacking, resulting in high conductivity. These properties are preserved even after high-resolution patterning by using photolithography. A multifunctional epidermal sensor array can be fabricated with the patterned nanomembranes.

An ultrathin skin-attachable display is a critical component for an information output port in next-generation wearable electronics. In this regard, quantum dot (QD) light-emitting diodes (QLEDs) offer unique and attractive characteristics for future displays, including high color purity with narrow bandwidths, high electroluminescence (EL) brightness at low operating voltages, and easy processability. Here, ultrathin QLED displays that utilize a passive matrix to address individual pixels are reported. The ultrathin thickness (≈5.5 µm) of the QLED display enables its conformal contact with the wearer's skin and prevents its failure under vigorous mechanical deformation. QDs with relatively thick shells are employed to improve EL characteristics (brightness up to 44 719 cd m at 9 V, which is the record highest among wearable LEDs reported to date) by suppressing the nonradiative recombination. Various patterns, including letters, numbers, and symbols can be successfully visualized on the skin-mounted QLED display. Furthermore, the combination of the ultrathin QLED display with flexible driving circuits and wearable sensors results in a fully integrated QLED display that can directly show sensor data.

With the rapid advances in wearable electronics, the research on carbon-based and/or organic materials and devices has become increasingly important, owing to their advantages in terms of cost, weight, and mechanical deformability. Here, we report an effective material and device design for an integrative wearable cardiac monitor based on carbon nanotube (CNT) electronics and voltage-dependent color-tunable organic light-emitting diodes (CTOLEDs). A p-MOS inverter based on four CNT transistors allows high amplification and thereby successful acquisition of the electrocardiogram (ECG) signals. In the CTOLEDs, an ultrathin exciton block layer of bis[2-(diphenylphosphino)phenyl]ether oxide is used to manipulate the balance of charges between two adjacent emission layers, bis[2-(4,6-difluorophenyl)pyridinato-C,N](picolinato)iridium(III) and bis(2-phenylquinolyl-N,C(2'))iridium(acetylacetonate), which thereby produces different colors with respect to applied voltages. The ultrathin nature of the fabricated devices supports extreme wearability and conformal integration of the sensor on human skin. The wearable CTOLEDs integrated with CNT electronics are used to display human ECG changes in real-time using tunable colors. These materials and device strategies provide opportunities for next generation wearable health indicators.

An ultrathin, stretchable memory skin patch that can reliably store bio-signals such as heart rate is newly developed.

Electronics for wearable applications require soft, flexible, and stretchable materials and designs to overcome the mechanical mismatch between the human body and devices. A key requirement for such wearable electronics is reliable operation with high performance and robustness during various deformations induced by motions. Here, we present materials and device design strategies for the core elements of wearable electronics, such as transistors, charge-trap floating-gate memory units, and various logic gates, with stretchable form factors. The use of semiconducting carbon nanotube networks designed for integration with charge traps and ultrathin dielectric layers meets the performance requirements as well as reliability, proven by detailed material and electrical characterizations using statistics. Serpentine interconnections and neutral mechanical plane layouts further enhance the deformability required for skin-based systems. Repetitive stretching tests and studies in mechanics corroborate the validity of the current approaches.

Neural interfacing probes are located between the nervous system and the implanted electronic device in order to acquire information on the complex neuronal activity and to reconstruct impaired neural connectivity. Despite remarkable advancement in recent years, conventional neural interfacing is still unable to completely accomplish these goals, especially in long-term brain interfacing. The major limitation arises from physical and mechanical differences between neural interfacing probes and neural tissues that cause local immune responses and production of scar cells near the interface. Therefore, neural interfaces should ideally be extremely soft and have the physical scale of cells to mitigate the boundary between biotic and abiotic systems. Soft materials for neural interfaces have been intensively investigated to improve both interfacing and long-term signal transmission. The design and fabrication of micro and nanoscale devices have drastically decreased the stiffness of probes and enabled single-neuron measurement. In this Mini Review, we discuss materials and design approaches for developing soft high-resolution neural probes intended for long-term brain interfacing and outline existent challenges for achieving next-generation neural interfacing probes.