Efforts to adapt and extend graphic arts printing techniques for demanding device applications in electronics, biotechnology and microelectromechanical systems have grown rapidly in recent years. Here, we describe the use of electrohydrodynamically induced fluid flows through fine microcapillary nozzles for jet printing of patterns and functional devices with submicrometre resolution. Key aspects of the physics of this approach, which has some features in common with related but comparatively low-resolution techniques for graphic arts, are revealed through direct high-speed imaging of the droplet formation processes. Printing of complex patterns of inks, ranging from insulating and conducting polymers, to solution suspensions of silicon nanoparticles and rods, to single-walled carbon nanotubes, using integrated computer-controlled printer systems illustrates some of the capabilities. High-resolution printed metal interconnects, electrodes and probing pads for representative circuit patterns and functional transistors with critical dimensions as small as 1 mum demonstrate potential applications in printed electronics.

Wearable contact lenses which can monitor physiological parameters have attracted substantial interests due to the capability of direct detection of biomarkers contained in body fluids. However, previously reported contact lens sensors can only monitor a single analyte at a time. Furthermore, such ocular contact lenses generally obstruct the field of vision of the subject. Here, we developed a multifunctional contact lens sensor that alleviates some of these limitations since it was developed on an actual ocular contact lens. It was also designed to monitor glucose within tears, as well as intraocular pressure using the resistance and capacitance of the electronic device. Furthermore, in-vivo and in-vitro tests using a live rabbit and bovine eyeball demonstrated its reliable operation. Our developed contact lens sensor can measure the glucose level in tear fluid and intraocular pressure simultaneously but yet independently based on different electrical responses.

This study presents a soft, smart contact lens that provides real-time sensing for diabetes through a wireless display.

Biological ion channels are able to generate coherent and oscillatory signals from intrinsically noisy and stochastic components for ultrasensitive discrimination with the use of stochastic resonance, a concept not yet demonstrated in human-made analogs. We show that a single-walled carbon nanotube demonstrates oscillations in electroosmotic current through its interior at specific ranges of electric field that are the signatures of coherence resonance. Stochastic pore blocking is observed when individual cations partition into the nanotube obstructing an otherwise stable proton current. The observed oscillations occur because of coupling between pore blocking and a proton-diffusion limitation at the pore mouth. The result illustrates how simple ionic transport can generate coherent waveforms within an inherently noisy environment and points to new types of nanoreactors, sensors, and nanofluidic channels based on this platform.

The formation of three-dimensional (3D) interconnections is essential in integrated circuit packaging technology. However, conventional interconnection methods, including the wire-bonding process, were developed for rigid structures of electronic devices, and they are not applicable to the integration of soft and stretchable electronic devices. Hence, there is a strong demand for 3D interconnection technology that is applicable to soft, stretchable electronic devices. Herein, we introduce the material and the processing required for stretchable 3D interconnections on the soft forms of devices and substrates with high resolutions. Liquid-metal-based composites for use as stretchable interconnection materials were developed by uniformly dispersing Pt-decorated carbon nanotubes in a liquid metal matrix. The inclusion of carbon nanotubes in the liquid metal improves the mechanical strength of the composite, thereby overcoming the limitation of the liquid metal that has a low mechanical strength. The composites can be 3D printed with various dimensions: the minimum diameters are about 5 μm and have a breakdown current density comparable to that of metal wires.