Imperceptible Epidermal–Iontronic Interface for Wearable Sensing

Abstract

Recent development of epidermal electronics provides an enabling means to continuous monitoring of physiological signals and close tracking of physical activities without affecting quality of life. Such devices require high sensitivity for low-magnitude signal detection, noise reduction for motion artifacts, imperceptible wearability with long-term comfortableness, and low-cost production for scalable manufacturing. However, the existing epidermal pressure sensing devices, usually involving complex multilayer structures, have not fully addressed the aforementioned challenges. Here, the first epidermal–iontronic interface (EII) is successfully introduced incorporating both single-sided iontronic devices and the skin itself as the pressure sensing architectures, allowing an ultrathin, flexible, and imperceptible packaging with conformal epidermal contact. Notably, utilizing skin as part of the EII sensor, high pressure sensitivity and high signal-to-noise ratios are achieved, along with ultralow motion artifacts for both internal (body) and external (environmental) mechanical stimuli. Monitoring of various vital signals, such as blood pressure waveforms, respiration waveforms, muscle activities and artificial tactile sensation, is successfully demonstrated, implicating a broad applicability of the EII devices for emerging wearable applications.

Epidermal-interfaced pressure sensing devices are reported using skin as part of sensor, with a single-sided configuration. This novel architecture enables an imperceptible and conformal epidermal/device contact. Both internal (body) and external (environmental) mechanical stimuli have been demonstrated to be detected, e.g., blood pressure pulsations, respiration rates, muscle activities, and hand tactile pressure distribution.

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