(Invited) Self-Powered Medical Electronics

Abstract

Recently, piezoelectric nanogenerator（PENG） and triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) have attracted much attention and been considered as another potential solution for harvesting mechanical energy. With its high output performance, outstanding biocompatibility and low cost, nanogenerator（NG） has been studied for powering implantable and wearable electronic medical devices. Here, we demonstrated a biomechanical-energy harvesting using a NG as a power source or an active sensor. The NGs can convert the mechanical energy from human motion into electricity and drive the implanted long-term self-powered medical devices or biosensors. An implantable triboelectric nanogenerator (iTENG) in a living animal has been developed to harvest energy from its periodic breathing. The energy generated from breathing and body moving was used to power a prototype pacemaker and a low-level laser cure (SPLC) system, respectively. Meanwhile, it was found that the self-powered system could regulate the heart rate of a rat and significantly accelerated the mouse embryonic osteoblasts' proliferation and differentiation. Real-time acquisition and wireless transmission of self-powered cardiac monitoring data was also demonstrated for the first time. Another NG based self-powered pulse sensor have been applied for antidiastole of coronary heart disease, atrial septal defect and atrial fibrillation from health. These works are concentrated on live-powered medical devices. It showed broad clinical applications of self-powered medical systems for disease detection and health care.