Abstract
Implantable technologies are becoming more widespread for biomedical applications that include physical identification, health diagnosis, monitoring, recording, and treatment of human physiological traits. However, energy harvesting and power generation beneath the human tissue are still a major challenge. In this regard, self-powered implantable devices that scavenge energy from the human body are attractive for long-term monitoring of human physiological traits. Thanks to advancements in material science and nanotechnology, energy harvesting techniques that rely on piezoelectricity, thermoelectricity, biofuel, and radio frequency power transfer are emerging. However, all these techniques suffer from limitations that include low power output, bulky size, or low efficiency. Photovoltaic (PV) energy conversion is one of the most promising candidates for implantable applications due to their higher-power conversion efficiencies and small footprint. Herein, the latest implantable energy harvesting technologies are surveyed. A comparison between the different state-of-the-art power harvesting methods is also provided. Finally, recommendations are provided regarding the feasibility of PV cells as an in vivo energy harvester, with an emphasis on skin penetration, fabrication, encapsulation, durability, biocompatibility, and power management.
Highlights
Considering the electrical performance, the implantable PV cells are advantageous for stable output voltage and hundreds of mA current
The mono-crystalline silicon is mostly used in the implantable PV cell fabrication, while the polysilicon and amorphous silicon (a-Si) are advantageous for slower dissolution
The hermetic structure is proposed with long-term stability in in vivo test, while there is lack of evidence to show the stability of polymer encapsulation in the implantable applications
Summary
The converted signal can be transmitted outside the human body via the “communications” block All these mentioned blocks need to be supplied by power harvesting units that scavenge energy from the human body or from the ambient.[28] all these blocks interface with biomedical sensors or actuators subcutaneously.[29] The data sensing and conversion blocks are able to detect the physiological data of the human body and transfer it into an electric signal.[30] These signals can be processed and stored as readable data by the signal processing module. We will highlight the amount of power required by each implantable application, as well as the amount of power that can be scavenged using the different power harvesting techniques
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