Flexible Polymer Transistors with High Pressure Sensitivity for Application in Electronic Skin and Health Monitoring

Overview

Journal Nat Commun

Specialty Biology

Date 2013 May 16

PMID 23673644

Citations 263

Authors

Gregor Schwartz

Benjamin C-K Tee

Jianguo Mei

Anthony L Appleton

Do Hwan Kim

Huiliang Wang

Zhenan Bao

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Flexible pressure sensors are essential parts of an electronic skin to allow future biomedical prostheses and robots to naturally interact with humans and the environment. Mobile biomonitoring in long-term medical diagnostics is another attractive application for these sensors. Here we report the fabrication of flexible pressure-sensitive organic thin film transistors with a maximum sensitivity of 8.4 kPa(-1), a fast response time of <10 ms, high stability over >15,000 cycles and a low power consumption of <1 mW. The combination of a microstructured polydimethylsiloxane dielectric and the high-mobility semiconducting polyisoindigobithiophene-siloxane in a monolithic transistor design enabled us to operate the devices in the subthreshold regime, where the capacitance change upon compression of the dielectric is strongly amplified. We demonstrate that our sensors can be used for non-invasive, high fidelity, continuous radial artery pulse wave monitoring, which may lead to the use of flexible pressure sensors in mobile health monitoring and remote diagnostics in cardiovascular medicine.

Citing Articles

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Beyond Flexible: Unveiling the Next Era of Flexible Electronic Systems.

Kim M, Almuslem A, Babatain W, Bahabry R, Das U, El-Atab N Adv Mater. 2024; 36(51):e2406424.

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Flexible electronics for cardiovascular monitoring on complex physiological skins.

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