Sensing mechanical tissue deformation in vivo can provide detailed information on organ functionality and tissue states. To bridge the huge mechanical mismatch between conventional electronics and biological tissues, stretchable electronic systems have recently been developed for interfacing tissues in healthcare applications. A major challenge for wireless electronic implants is that they typically require microchips, which adds complexity and may compromise long‐term stability. Here, a chipless wireless strain sensor technology based on a novel soft conductor with high cyclic stability is reported. The composite material consists of gold‐coated titanium dioxide nanowires embedded in a soft silicone elastomer. The implantable strain sensor is based on an resonant circuit which consists of a stretchable plate capacitor and a coil for inductive readout of its resonance frequency. Successful continuous wireless readout during 50% strain cycles is demonstrated. The sensor element has a Young's modulus of 260 kPa, similar to that of the bladder in order to not impair physiological bladder expansion. A proof‐of‐principle measurement on an ex vivo porcine bladder is presented, which shows the feasibility of the presented materials and devices for continuous, wireless strain monitoring of various tissues and organs in vivo.
Controlled encapsulation is important in pharmaceutics, agriculture, food products, and in emerging materials applications. Microfluidics offers a compelling approach to create controlled emulsions and microcapsules for these applications, but upscaling of this technology for the robust encapsulation of chemically diverse active ingredients is not yet demonstrated. Here, it is shown that microfluidic step emulsification can be exploited in upscaled glass devices to robustly produce monodisperse double emulsions and functional microcapsules in tandem at high throughput rates. The effect of geometrical parameters of the devices and the operating flow rates on the morphology, dimensions, and structure of monodisperse double emulsions is investigated and quantified using simple quantitative models. Using such double emulsions as templates, mechanoresponsive microcapsules that can be embedded in a soft matrix to generate damage‐reporting polymer parts that change color in areas subjected to excessive mechanical loads are created. Thanks to the chemical versatility and mechanical robustness of glass, this platform should enable the high‐throughput encapsulation of a wide variety of chemicals while providing the exquisite control achievable through microfluidics.
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