Physical sensors for skin‐inspired electronics

Abstract

Skin, the largest organ in the human body, is sensitive to external stimuli.In recent years, an increasing number of skin-inspired electronics, including wearable electronics, implantable electronics, and electronic skin, have been developed because of their broad applications in healthcare and robotics.Physical sensors are one of the key building blocks of skin-inspired electronics. Typical physical sensors include mechanical sensors, temperature sensors, humidity sensors, electrophysiological sensors, and so on. In this review, we systematically review the latest advances of skin-inspired mechanical sensors, temperature sensors, and humidity sensors. The working mechanisms, key materials, device structures, and performance of various physical sensors are summarized and discussed in detail. Their applications in health monitoring, human disease diagnosis and treatment, and intelligent robots are reviewed. In addition, several novel properties of skin-inspired physical sensors such as versatility, self-healability, and implantability are introduced. Finally, the existing challenges and future perspectives of physical sensors for practical applications are discussed and proposed. K E Y W O R D Selectronics skin, flexible electronics, humidity sensors, mechanical sensors, temperature sensors, wearable sensors

Stable and Biocompatible Carbon Nanotube Ink Mediated by Silk Protein for Printed Electronics

“…Ink-based processes enable rapid production of versatile advanced devices, such as printed electronics, [1] printed photonics, [2] and wearable devices. [3][4][5] Particularly, various flexible electronics, such as flexible circuits, [6][7][8][9] sensors, [10][11][12] and energy devices, [13][14][15] have been realized by introducing conductive inks on flexible substrates. One of issues dominating the properties of flexible electronics is the selection of conductive inks.…”

Transduction Mechanisms, Micro-Structuring Techniques, and Applications of Electronic Skin Pressure Sensors: A Review of Recent Advances

“…Ni Zhao and co-workers reviewed the key figures-of-merit of pressure sensors, the main types of sensors and respective materials and some micro-structuring and fabrication techniques, with exploitation of sensors’ theoretical modelling and some applications [ 54 ]. A paper from 2019 covered several e-skin sensors, namely mechanical (including pressure and strain sensors), temperature, and humidity, as well as respective materials [ 55 ]. Some key features of these e-skin devices and micro-structuring techniques were approached [ 55 ].…”

“…A paper from 2019 covered several e-skin sensors, namely mechanical (including pressure and strain sensors), temperature, and humidity, as well as respective materials [ 55 ]. Some key features of these e-skin devices and micro-structuring techniques were approached [ 55 ]. Materials to pursue the key features of e-skin devices, as well as several types of sensors, such as pressure (except triboelectric), motion, temperature, humidity, biochemical, chemical, and multiplex, drug delivery systems, and printing technologies for the fabrication and micro-structuring of sensors were overviewed in another review from that year [ 56 ].…”

“…Overall, the majority of the published reviews cover not only pressure sensors but also other sensors and e-skin units, therefore, the description of pressure sensors is typically not very detailed [ 3 , 4 , 46 , 48 , 49 , 52 , 53 , 55 , 56 , 57 , 59 ]. Especially concerning the first reviews, triboelectric pressure sensors are not mentioned, possibly because their development is more recent, or the differences between the different types of pressure sensors are not clearly stated and explored [ 3 , 4 , 5 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 , 50 , 52 , 53 , 56 , 58 , 60 ].…”

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