Three-dimensional curvy electronics created using conformal additive stamp printing

Sim, Kyoseung; Chen, Song; Li, Zhengwei; Rao, Zhoulyu; Liu, Jingshen; Lu, Yuntao; Jang, Seonmin; Ershad, Faheem; Chen, Ji; Xiao, Jianliang; Yu, Cunjiang

doi:10.1038/s41928-019-0304-4

Cited by 135 publications

(129 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…[ 134–136 ] Novel fabrication techniques, such as in‐mold printing, nonplanar stamp printing, or hydro dipping, also allow the high‐throughput deposition of inks onto nondevelopable surfaces using planar printing, and their integration with such advanced materials to obtain smart 4D structure is yet to be explored. [ 137–139 ] By combining novel structures and advanced fabrication strategies, we envision the development of various devices that are truly resilient, responsive and smart, such as sensors that can morph in response to the change in the subject, solar cells that can actively trace the direction of sunlight, or robots that can autonomously move, interact and transform, all fabricated using scalable, low‐cost and high‐throughput planar printing techniques. By addressing the current limitations and developing novel fabrication strategies, research on structural innovations in printed electronics is expected to have a significant impact on the making of nature‐inspired, resilient, autonomous, and multi‐stimuli responsive smart flexible devices.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Structural Innovations in Printed, Flexible, and Stretchable Electronics

Yin

Wang

2020

Adv Materials Technologies

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Research in stretchable, printed electronics combines multidisciplinary, state‐of‐the‐art developments in material science and structural engineering. In addition to major advances based on developing novel materials and fabrication processes, synergistic structural innovations are of equal importance for enabling stretchability in printed devices and should not be overlooked. Planar printing techniques are preferred, compared to microfabrication or 3D printing processes, owing to their low cost, high throughput, and compatibility with a wide range of materials. Various printing strategies for controlling the substrate, bonding, distribution of strain, and buckling can be used to fabricate a variety of devices featuring wrinkled, textile‐embedded, serpentine, island‐bridge, or 2D‐transformed 3D and 4D structures. Such structural innovations allow the use of ordinary printable materials for creating highly stretchable devices with minimal compromise in device performance and mechanical resiliency. This article provides an overview of the structures used in printed devices and summarizes their corresponding fabrication strategies and distinct features. The challenges of advancing the structural designs in printed devices and the prospects of transforming stretchable structures toward smart, responsive devices are also discussed. Future efforts will greatly expand the possibilities of using planar printing processes for fabricating complex structures with new functionalities.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Structural Innovations in Printed, Flexible, and Stretchable Electronics

Yin

Wang

2020

Adv Materials Technologies

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“…To achieve mechanical softness, one effective approach is to reduce the bending stiffness of electronics by making them thin: the bending stiffness of a structure is proportional to its thickness raised to the third power. [31] For example, brittle yet thin silicon (fracture limit of 1%) [32,33] with 100-nm thickness is mechanically flexible and can be bent while remaining intact. [34] In addition to imparting flexibility to electronic devices, they also require mechanical stretchability to better interface and concurrently deform with the skin.…”

Section: Strategies To Improve the Soft Electronics/skin Interfacementioning

confidence: 99%

“…[34] In addition to imparting flexibility to electronic devices, they also require mechanical stretchability to better interface and concurrently deform with the skin. Two strategies have been applied to achieve mechanical stretchability in soft electronics: 1) utilizing intrinsically stretchable, rubbery materials including rubbery electronic materials (semiconductors, conductors, and dielectrics) [14,15,24,[35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45] and liquid metals [46][47][48][49] to build the electronics; 2) employing engineered structures like wrinkles, [34,[50][51][52][53][54][55][56] serpentines, [12,17,33,44,[57][58][59][60][61] island-bridge structures, [62,63] textiles, [64] origami, [65,66] kirigami, [37,67] and microcracks [68] to accommodate the induced strain. [30,…”

Section: Strategies To Improve the Soft Electronics/skin Interfacementioning

confidence: 99%

Soft Electronics for the Skin: From Health Monitors to Human–Machine Interfaces

Rao

Ershad

Almasri

et al. 2020

Adv Materials Technologies

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Conventional bulky and rigid electronics prevent compliant interfacing with soft human skin for health monitoring and human–machine interaction, due to the incompatible mechanical characteristics. To overcome the limitations, soft skin‐mountable electronics with superior mechanical softness, flexibility, and stretchability provide an effective platform for intimate interaction with humans. In addition, soft electronics offer comfortability when worn on the soft, curvilinear, and dynamic human skin. Herein, recent advances in soft electronics as health monitors and human–machine interfaces (HMIs) are briefly discussed. Strategies to achieve softness in soft electronics including structural designs, material innovations, and approaches to optimize the interface between human skin and soft electronics are briefly reviewed. Characteristics and performances of soft electronic devices for health monitoring, including temperature sensors, pressure sensors for pulse monitoring, pulse oximeters, electrophysiological sensors, and sweat sensors, exemplify their wide range of utility. Furthermore, the soft electronic devices for prosthetic limb, household object, mobile machine, and virtual object control are presented to highlight the current and potential implementations of soft electronics for a broad range of HMI applications. Finally, the current limitations and future opportunities of soft skin‐mountable electronics are also discussed.

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“…Water-assisted transfer to nondevelopable surfaces has been widely used, but wrinkles and strains are inevitable (23). Conformal additive stamping method using an inflated balloon as the stamp has been invented as a very versatile transfer printing approach (24). However, during the printing step, the soft balloon surface has to stretch to fully conform to a 3D curvilinear target surface, which could induce nontrivial strains (>1%) in the devices as revealed in the paper.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Electrically compensated, tattoo-like electrodes for epidermal electrophysiology at scale

et al. 2020

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Epidermal electrophysiology is widely carried out for disease diagnosis, performance monitoring, human-machine interaction, etc. Compared with thick, stiff, and irritating gel electrodes, emerging tattoo-like epidermal electrodes offer much better wearability and versatility. However, state-of-the-art tattoo-like electrodes are limited in size (e.g., centimeters) to perform electrophysiology at scale due to challenges including large-area fabrication, skin lamination, and electrical interference from long interconnects. Therefore, we report large-area, soft, breathable, substrate- and encapsulation-free electrodes designed into transformable filamentary serpentines that can be rapidly fabricated by cut-and-paste method. We propose a Cartan curve–inspired transfer process to minimize strain in the electrodes when laminated on nondevelopable skin surfaces. Unwanted signals picked up by the unencapsulated interconnects can be eliminated through a previously unexplored electrical compensation strategy. These tattoo-like electrodes can comfortably cover the whole chest, forearm, or neck for applications such as multichannel electrocardiography, sign language recognition, prosthetic control or mapping of neck activities.

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Three-dimensional curvy electronics created using conformal additive stamp printing

Cited by 135 publications

References 52 publications

Structural Innovations in Printed, Flexible, and Stretchable Electronics

Structural Innovations in Printed, Flexible, and Stretchable Electronics

Soft Electronics for the Skin: From Health Monitors to Human–Machine Interfaces

Electrically compensated, tattoo-like electrodes for epidermal electrophysiology at scale

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