An Emerging Era: Conformable Ultrasound Electronics

Abstract

Conformable electronics are regarded as the next generation of personal healthcare monitoring and remote diagnosis devices. In recent years, piezoelectric based conformable ultrasound electronics (cUSE) have been intensively studied due to their unique capabilities, including no‐radiative monitoring, soft tissue imaging, deep signal decoding, wireless power transfer, portability, and compatibility. This review provides a comprehensive understanding of cUSE for use in biomedical and healthcare monitoring systems and a summary of their recent advancements. Following an introduction to the fundamentals of piezoelectrics and ultrasound transducers, the critical parameters for transducer design are discussed. Next, five types of cUSE with their advantages and limitations are highlighted, and the fabrication of cUSE using advanced technologies is discussed. In addition, the working function, acoustic performance, and accomplishments in various applications are thoroughly summarized. We note that application considerations must be given to the tradeoffs between material selection, manufacturing processes, acoustic performance, mechanical integrity, and the entire integrated system. Finally, we highlight current challenges and directions for the development of cUSE, and provide research flow as the roadmap for future research. In conclusion, these advances in the fields of piezoelectric materials, ultrasound transducers, and conformable electronics spark an emerging era of biomedicine and personal healthcare.This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

An implantable piezoelectric ultrasound stimulator (ImPULS) for deep brain activation

“…Ultrasound is a modality that has been used by the medical community for half of a century as a tissue-safe medium of energy transduction. Conformable ultrasound electronics interface intimately with soft tissues to image, deliver drugs to, or stimulate organs 7 – 9 . Unobstructed transcranial-focused ultrasound (tFUS) beams can achieve millimeter-scale resolution in neural tissue and penetrate several centimeters to excite neurons by affecting mechanoreceptive and other membrane-bound ion channels 10 – 13 .…”

Portable Wireless Handheld Ultrasound Linear Series UProbe-L5 and Hitachi Aloka F37 Ultrasound Reliability Test

“…The UProbe-L5 machine is an example of a portable ultrasound instrument developed explicitly to measure muscle thickness. The portable nature, user-friendly interface, and capability to provide real-time imaging are among the notable characteristics that distinguish it from conventional ultrasound devices (Nakanishi et al, 2023;Zhang et al, 2023). This feature renders it a valuable instrument for healthcare practitioners across many settings, including clinics, sports medical facilities, instructional contexts, and research environments.…”

Ultrasound-Based Micro-/Nanosystems for Biomedical Applications

“…These agents, used with the assistance of ultrasound, facilitate diverse biomedical applications, involving patient stratification, individual tumor characterization, biomaterial-tumor interaction prediction, imaging-guided local treatment, drug-release monitoring, post-treatment response feedback, tailor-designed nanomedicines, etc. Sonodynamic therapy (SDT) is a prime paradigm of the ingenious combination of nanomedicine and ultrasound. ,, Micro-/nanomaterials can effectively enhance SDT efficiency because of their potential to improve sonosensitizer delivery, augment ultrasonic cavitation, amplify the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), and mediate combinational therapy. − The past decade has witnessed rapid developments and innovations in research progress on ultrasound biomedicine for disease diagnosis, treatment, and theranostics. − The unprecedented research enthusiasm and significant efforts have led to a mass of multifunctional micro-/nanosystems (e.g., polymer, liposome, micelle, dendrimer, inorganic nanoparticle, microbubble, etc.) being applied in ultrasound-mediated diagnosis, treatment, and theranostics for various diseases, such as ultrasound-mediated biomedical imaging, ultrasound-enhanced drug release and gene transfection, ultrasound-triggered therapy (e.g., SDT and high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU)), ultrasound-based synergistic therapy, ultrasound-based theranostics, etc.…”