Science 4 April 2014:
Vol. 344 no. 6179 pp. 70-74
DOI: 10.1126/science.1250169
REPORT
Soft Microfluidic Assemblies of Sensors, Circuits, and Radios for the Skin
Sheng Xu1,*, Yihui Zhang2,3,*, Lin Jia1,*, Kyle E. Mathewson4,*, Kyung-In Jang1, Jeonghyun Kim1,6, Haoran Fu2,5, Xian Huang1, Pranav Chava1, Renhan Wang1, Sanat Bhole1, Lizhe Wang1, Yoon Joo Na1, Yue Guan1, Matthew Flavin1, Zheshen Han1, Yonggang Huang2,†, John A. Rogers1,4,†
+ Author Affiliations
1Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA.
2Department of Mechanical Engineering and Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Center for Engineering and Health, and Skin Disease Research Center, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA.
3Center for Mechanics and Materials, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, P.R. China.
4Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA.
5Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, P.R. China.
6Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Department of Energy Engineering, Hanyang University, Seoul 133-791, Republic of Korea.
?†Corresponding author. E-mail: jrogers@illinois.edu (J.A.R.); y-huang@northwestern.edu (Y.H.)
?* These authors contributed equally to this work.
ABSTRACTEDITOR'S SUMMARY
When mounted on the skin, modern sensors, circuits, radios, and power supply systems have the potential to provide clinical-quality health monitoring capabilities for continuous use, beyond the confines of traditional hospital or laboratory facilities. The most well-developed component technologies are, however, broadly available only in hard, planar formats. As a result, existing options in system design are unable to effectively accommodate integration with the soft, textured, curvilinear, and time-dynamic surfaces of the skin. Here, we describe experimental and theoretical approaches for using ideas in soft microfluidics, structured adhesive surfaces, and controlled mechanical buckling to achieve ultralow modulus, highly stretchable systems that incorporate assemblies of high-modulus, rigid, state-of-the-art functional elements. The outcome is a thin, conformable device technology that can softly laminate onto the surface of the skin to enable advanced, multifunctional operation for physiological monitoring in a wireless mode.