Recent advances in material innovation and structural design provide routes to flexible hybrid electronics that can combine the high‐performance electrical properties of conventional wafer‐based electronics with the ability to be stretched, bent, and twisted to arbitrary shapes, revolutionizing the transformation of traditional healthcare to digital healthcare. Here, material innovation and structural design for the preparation of flexible hybrid electronics are reviewed, a brief chronology of these advances is given, and biomedical applications in bioelectrical monitoring and stimulation, optical monitoring and treatment, acoustic imitation and monitoring, bionic touch, and body‐fluid testing are described. In conclusion, some remarks on the challenges for future research of flexible hybrid electronics are presented.
Flexible
pressure sensors have attracted considerable attention
because of their potential applications in healthcare monitoring and
human–machine interactions. However, the complicated fabrication
process and the cos of sensing materials limit their widespread applications
in practice. Herein, a flexible pressure sensor with outstanding performances
is presented through an extremely simple and cost-efficient fabrication
process. The sensing materials of the sensor are based on low-cost
carbon black (CB)@airlaid paper (AP) composites, which are just prepared
by drop-casting CB solutions onto APs. Through simply stacking multiple
CB@APs with an irregular surface and a fiber-network structure, the
obtained pressure sensor demonstrates an ultrahigh sensitivity of
51.23 kPa–1 and an ultralow detection limit of 1
Pa. Additionally, the sensor exhibits fast response time, wide working
range, good stability, as well as excellent flexibility and biocompatibility.
All the comprehensive and superior performances endow the sensor with
abilities to precisely detect weak air flow, wrist pulse, phonation,
and wrist bending in real time. In addition, an array electronic skin
integrated with multiple CB@AP sensors has been designed to identify
spatial pressure distribution and pressure magnitude. Through a biomimetic
structure inspired by blooming flowers, a sensor with the open-petal
structure has been designed to recognize the wind direction. Therefore,
our study, which demonstrates a flexible pressure sensor with low
cost, simple preparation, and superior performances, will open up
for the exploration of cost-efficient pressure sensors in wearable
devices.
The use of implantable medical devices, including cardiac pacemakers and brain pacemakers, is becoming increasingly prevalent. However, surgically replacing batteries owing to their limited lifetime is a drawback of those devices. Such an operation poses a risk to patients-a problem that, to date, has not yet been solved. Furthermore, current devices are large and rigid, potentially causing patient discomfort after implantation. To address this problem, we developed a thin, battery-free, flexible, implantable system based on flexible electronic technology that can not only achieve wireless recharging and communication simultaneously via ultrasound but also perform many current device functions, including in vivo physiological monitoring and cardiac pacing. To prove this, an animal experiment was conducted involving creating a cardiac arrest model and powering the system by ultrasound. The results showed that it automatically detected abnormal heartbeats and responded by electrically stimulating the heart, demonstrating the device's potential clinical utility for emergent treatment.
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