Kirigami‐Inspired Biodesign for Applications in Healthcare

Abstract

Mechanically flexible and conformable materials and integrated devices have found diverse applications in personalized healthcare as diagnostics and therapeutics, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine constructs, surgical tools, secure systems, and assistive technologies. In order to impart optimal mechanical properties to the (bio)materials used in these applications, various strategies have been explored—from composites to structural engineering. In recent years, geometric cuts inspired by the art of paper‐cutting, referred to as kirigami, have provided innovative opportunities for conferring precise mechanical properties via material removal. Kirigami‐based approaches have been used for device design in areas ranging from soft bioelectronics to energy storage. In this review, the principles of kirigami‐inspired engineering specifically for biomedical applications are discussed. Factors pertinent to their design, including cut geometry, materials, and fabrication, and the effect these parameters have on their properties and configurations are covered. Examples of kirigami designs in healthcare are presented, such as, various form factors of sensors (on skin, wearable), implantable devices, therapeutics, surgical procedures, and cellular scaffolds for regenerative medicine. Finally, the challenges and future scope for the successful translation of these biodesign concepts to broader deployment are discussed.

Self-Locking Kirigami Surfaces via Controlled Stretching

“…Kirigami and origami, traditional arts of paper cutting and folding, have widespread applications in areas such as robotics [1][2][3], biomedical engineering [4][5][6], electromechanical systems [7][8][9], metamaterials [10][11][12][13], space structure [14] and architectural structures [15] due to their powerful capability of transforming two-dimensional patterns into complex threedimensional structures [16][17][18]. In contrast to origami structures, kirigami introduces cuts to release constraints between facets, thereby increasing the variability and variety of achieved design configurations [19,20].…”

A Snakeskin‐Inspired, Soft‐Hinge Kirigami Metamaterial for Self‐Adaptive Conformal Electronic Armor

“…Kirigami mechanical metamaterials (Kiri-MMs) have shown great potential in flexible electronics and soft robotics [22][23][24] due to their extraordinary mechanical properties including tunable Poisson's ratio, [25,26] high stretchability, [27][28][29] programmable morphability, [30][31][32][33][34] and configurable 2D-to-3D transformability. [35][36][37][38] Many creative kirigami-inspired applications have been achieved such as soft crawler, [39] shoe grip, [40] morphable stent, [41] adaptive imager, [42] and flexible car shell.…”

MetaMembranes for the Sensitivity Enhancement of Wearable Piezoelectric MetaSensors

“…Poisson's ratio defines the ratio between two characteristics of the transverse and longitudinal strain of a structure, and NPR behavior has been discovered in auxetic materials that expand (contract) in the transverse direction when stretched (compressed), instead of usual materials (Figure 1) [10][11][12][13][14]. Such an auxetic behavior is found in some hexagonal [15][16][17][18][19][20] and kirigami honeycombs [21][22][23][24][25][26][27]. Auxeticinspired designs for flexible membranes and substrates are attracting growing attention in developing the next generation of highly efficient piezoelectric sensors and harvesters.…”