Flexible and biocompatible high-performance solid-state micro-battery for implantable orthodontic system

Arwa T Kutbee,Amani S Almuslem,Muhammad M Hussain,Mohamed T Ghoneim,Joanna M Nassar,Rabab R Bahabry,Niveen M Khashab,Aftab M Hussain,Marlon D Cordero,Elhadj M Diallo,Abdurrahman Gumus,Kholod O Alamoudi

doi:10.1038/s41528-017-0008-7

Arwa T Kutbee, Amani S Almuslem + Show 10 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41528-017-0008-7

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Abstract

To augment the quality of our life, fully compliant personalized advanced health-care electronic system is pivotal. One of the major requirements to implement such systems is a physically flexible high-performance biocompatible energy storage (battery). However, the status-quo options do not match all of these attributes simultaneously and we also lack in an effective integration strategy to integrate them in complex architecture such as orthodontic domain in human body. Here we show, a physically complaint lithium-ion micro-battery (236 μg) with an unprecedented volumetric energy (the ratio of energy to device geometrical size) of 200 mWh/cm3 after 120 cycles of continuous operation. Our results of 90% viability test confirmed the battery’s biocompatibility. We also show seamless integration of the developed battery in an optoelectronic system embedded in a three-dimensional printed smart dental brace. We foresee the resultant orthodontic system as a personalized advanced health-care application, which could serve in faster bone regeneration and enhanced enamel health-care protection and subsequently reducing the overall health-care cost.

Highlights

Smart interfacing between various biological organs such as skin,[1,2,3] heart,[4] brain[5] etc. with high-performance electronics is critical to pave the way for personalized advanced health-care devices.[6, 7] In addition, disruptive technologies such as complex orthodontic architecture require conformable and flexible human-machine interfaces to the complex curvature of the human dental arch (>10 mm)
We show a pragmatic and highly effective integration strategy for an optoelectronic system developed from chip-scale battery module with die level near infrared light emitting diode (NIR-LED) arrays and embedded in a three-dimensional (3D) printed dental brace for a wearable phototherapy device (Fig. 1a–c)
Dental braces are used as a main functional modality in the field of Orthodontics and tooth correction

Summary

Introduction

Smart interfacing between various biological organs such as skin,[1,2,3] heart,[4] brain[5] etc. with high-performance electronics is critical to pave the way for personalized advanced health-care (both wearable and implantable) devices.[6, 7] In addition, disruptive technologies such as complex orthodontic architecture require conformable and flexible human-machine interfaces to the complex curvature of the human dental arch (>10 mm). We show a pragmatic and highly effective integration strategy for an optoelectronic system developed from chip-scale battery module with die level near infrared light emitting diode (NIR-LED) arrays (a turn-on voltage of 1.8 V, 640 nm wavelength) and embedded in a three-dimensional (3D) printed dental brace for a wearable phototherapy device (Fig. 1a–c) We envision this system to provide a groundwork for accelerated phototherapy using smart dental devices, aiming to preserve the aesthetics, added functionality, patient convenience, and lowering overall dental health-care cost

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