Implantable electronics are of great interest owing to their capability for real-time and continuous recording of cellular−electrical activity. Nevertheless, as such systems involve direct interfaces with surrounding biofluidic environments, maintaining their long-term sustainable operation, without leakage currents or corrosion, is a daunting challenge. Herein, we present a thin, flexible semiconducting material system that offers attractive attributes in this context. The material consists of crystalline cubic silicon carbide nanomembranes grown on silicon wafers, released and then physically transferred to a final device substrate (e.g., polyimide). The experimental results demonstrate that SiC nanomembranes with thicknesses of 230 nm do not experience the hydrolysis process (i.e., the etching rate is 0 nm/day at 96 °C in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS)). There is no observable water permeability for at least 60 days in PBS at 96 °C and non-Na + ion diffusion detected at a thickness of 50 nm after being soaked in 1× PBS for 12 days. These properties enable Faradaic interfaces between active electronics and biological tissues, as well as multimodal sensing of temperature, strain, and other properties without the need for additional encapsulating layers. These findings create important opportunities for use of flexible, wide band gap materials as essential components of long-lived neurological and cardiac electrophysiological device interfaces.

Carbon nanotube yarns are employed to develop environment-friendly, low cost and lightweight paper-based flexible devices for wearable applications in temperature and respiratory monitoring, and personal healthcare.

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Although direct ink writing (DIW) is a versatile 3D printing technique, progress in DIW has been constrained by the stringent rheological requirements for printable conductive nanocomposites, particularly at smaller length scales. In this work, we overcome these challenges using an aqueous nanocomposite ink with polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) submicrobeads and an electrochemically-derived graphene oxide (EGO) nanofiller. This nanocomposite ink possesses a thixotropic, self-supporting viscoelasticity. It can be easily extruded through very small nozzle openings (as small as 50 µm) allowing for the highest resolution PDMS DIW reported to date. With a mild thermal annealing, the DIW-printed device exhibits low resistivity (1660 Ω•cm) at a low percolation threshold of EGO (0.83 vol%) owing to the unique nanocomposite structure of graphene-wrapped elastomeric beads. The nanocomposite ink was used to print wearable, macro-scale strain sensing patches, as well as remarkably small, micron-scale pressure sensors. The large-scale strain sensors have excellent performance over a large working range (up to 40% strain), with high gauge factor (20.3), and fast responsivity (83 ms) while the micron-scale pressure sensors demonstrated high pressure sensitivity (0.31 kPa -1 ) and operating range (0.248-500 kPa). Ultrahigh resolution, multimaterial layer-by-layer deposition allows the engineering of microscale features into the devices, features which can be used to tune the piezoresistive mechanism and degree of piezoresistivity.