Biocompatible Piezoelectric Polymer Poly(Lactic Acid)-Based Stethoscope for Wearable Health Monitoring Devices

Abstract

With the development of wearable devices and the Internet of Things (IoT), there is a growing demand for portable and comfortable human health monitoring devices. Because of the advantages of biocompatibility, relatively large piezoelectric coefficients, and nonpyroelectricity, poly(L-lactic acid) (PLLA) polymers have been greatly utilized in the applications of tissue engineering, sensors, and energy harvesting devices. In this investigation, the PLLA film was fabricated for the first time for real-time wearable stethoscope and pulse wave sensor applications. First, the stretched PLLA film was glued onto a Mylar film as the active layer of the PLLA film-based stethoscope (PFS) and pulse sensor device. After the PFS device was measured in a semianechoic chamber, the device showed a sensitivity of –53.4 dB at 1 kHz and it also exhibited a stable frequency response in the range of 100 Hz–4 kHz. In addition, the PFS device showed an output voltage of <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\sim $ </tex-math></inline-formula> 90 mV when measuring the heart rate and pulse signal of an adult volunteer. Furthermore, the PFS device was integrated a portable stethoscope system, which can detect a clear pulse signal and send it to a data collection application designed in a cellphone. The biodegradability, stable frequency response, and temperature stability indicate the great potential of PFS device for wearable human health monitoring devices.