Abstract
Recent advances in nanostructured materials and unconventional device designs have transformed the bioelectronics from a rigid and bulky form into a soft and ultrathin form and brought enormous advantages to the bioelectronics. For example, mechanical deformability of the soft bioelectronics and thus its conformal contact onto soft curved organs such as brain, heart, and skin have allowed researchers to measure high-quality biosignals, deliver real-time feedback treatments, and lower long-term side-effects in vivo. Here, we review various materials, fabrication methods, and device strategies for flexible and stretchable electronics, especially focusing on soft biointegrated electronics using nanomaterials and their composites. First, we summarize top-down material processing and bottom-up synthesis methods of various nanomaterials. Next, we discuss state-of-the-art technologies for intrinsically stretchable nanocomposites composed of nanostructured materials incorporated in elastomers or hydrogels. We also briefly discuss unconventional device design strategies for soft bioelectronics. Then individual device components for soft bioelectronics, such as biosensing, data storage, display, therapeutic stimulation, and power supply devices, are introduced. Afterward, representative application examples of the soft bioelectronics are described. A brief summary with a discussion on remaining challenges concludes the review.
Highlights
Recent advances in nanostructured materials and unconventional device designs have transformed the bioelectronics from a rigid and bulky form into a soft and ultrathin form and brought enormous advantages to the bioelectronics
Flexible and stretchable bioelectronic devices are expected to provide new opportunities in diverse medical and healthcare applications.[1−6] These soft bioelectronic devices can be applied to soft curved organs including brain,[7,8] heart,[9,10] and skin,[11] making high-quality interfaces between devices and tissues[12] due to their mechanical softness.[13−16] Since material properties of such devices are matched with those of human tissues and organs, their sensing and therapy performance as well as long-term biocompatibility in vivo will be improved over those of conventional bulky and rigid devices.[17−19] these soft electronic devices can be conformally integrated with the human body,[20,21] which minimize the impedance and maximize the signal-to-noise ratio,[22,23] and they can capture various biosignals from target sites and translate them into electrical signals efficiently (Figure 1A).[24,25]
We focus on materials and engineering aspects of the deformable bioelectronic devices that have mechanical compatibility with soft biological tissues and exhibit high electrical performance
Summary
Flexible and stretchable bioelectronic devices are expected to provide new opportunities in diverse medical and healthcare applications.[1−6] These soft bioelectronic devices can be applied to soft curved organs including brain,[7,8] heart,[9,10] and skin,[11] making high-quality interfaces between devices and tissues[12] due to their mechanical softness.[13−16] Since material properties of such devices are matched with those of human tissues and organs, their sensing and therapy performance as well as long-term biocompatibility in vivo will be improved over those of conventional bulky and rigid devices.[17−19] these soft electronic devices can be conformally integrated with the human body,[20,21] which minimize the impedance and maximize the signal-to-noise ratio,[22,23] and they can capture various biosignals from target sites and translate them into electrical signals efficiently (Figure 1A).[24,25] In addition, such devices supply power to the biointegrated devices (Figure 1B), store the recorded data (Figure 1C), visualize the collected biosignals (Figure 1D), and apply feedback therapeutic stimulations (Figure 1E). Major organs such as brain (1−4 kPa) and heart (10−15 kPa) exhibit a large discrepancy in terms of their modulus (i.e., mechanical stiffness) from conventional rigid electronic materials and devices (∼100 GPa) (Figure 2) These differences hinder the monolithic conformal integration of the biomedical device with human body, and cause various sideeffects, when the bulky rigid devices need to be chronically implanted in or contacted to the target tissue and organ (Figure 3).[27]. We review individual device components for soft bioelectronics, such as electrophysiological, biochemical, physical, and optical sensors, feedback therapeutic stimulators, biosignal displays, power supply devices, and biodata storage devices, toward the
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