Advances in mobile networks and low-power electronics have driven smart mobile medical devices at a tremendous pace, evoking increased interest in household healthcare, especially for those with cardiovascular or respiratory disease. Thus, flexible battery-free pressure sensors, with great potential for monitoring respiration and heartbeat in a smart way, are urgently demanded. However, traditional flexible battery-free pressure sensors for subtle physiological signal detecting are mostly tightly adhered onto the skin instead of working under the pressure of body weight in a noncontact mode, as the low sensitivity in the high-pressure region can hardly meet the demands. Moreover, a hollow microstructure (HM) with higher deformation than solid microstructures and great potential for improving the pressure sensitivity of self-powered sensors has never been investigated. Here, for the first time, we demonstrated a noncontact heartbeat and respiration monitoring system based on a flexible HM-enhanced self-powered pressure sensor, which possesses the advantages of low cost, a high dynamic-pressure sensitivity of 18.98 V·kPa, and a wide working range of 40 kPa simultaneously. Specific superiority of physiological detection under a high pressure is also observed. Continuous reliable heartbeat and respiration information is successfully detected in a noncontact mode and transmitted to a mobile phone.

 Nowadays three-dimensional (3D) printing has been widely used for producing geometrically complex 3D structures from a broad range of materials such as ceramics, metals, polymers, semiconductors, etc. Although it has been demonstrated that a fabrication resolution as high as ~100 nm can be achieved in 3D printing based on two photon polymerization (TPP), the end product size of TPP is typically on millimeter scale limited by the short working distance of high-numerical-aperture focal lens. Here we present a method based on simultaneous spatiotemporal focusing (SSTF) of the femtosecond laser pulses that enables to fabricate centimeter-scale 3D structures of fine features with TPP. We also demonstrate an isotropic spatial resolution which can be continuously tuned in the range of ~10 μm and ~40 μm by only varying the power of femtosecond laser, making this technique extremely flexible and easy to implement. We fabricate several Chinese guardian lions of a maximum height of 0.6 cm and a Terra Cotta Warrior of a height of 1.3 cm using this method.

A novel synergistic strategy to improve electrochemical performance of Li-rich cathode by co-doping of magnesium and aluminium.