Printed Electronics Open Way for Electrified Tattoos and Personalized Biosensors #Wearables
Engineers at Duke University have devised printing technique for electronics that is gentle enough to work on delicate surfaces including paper and human skin, Via Duke
The concept of so-called electronic tattoos were first developed in the late 2000s at the University of Illinois by John A. Rogers, who is now the Louis Simpson and Kimberly Querrey Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern University. Rather than a true tattoo that is injected permanently into the skin, Rogers’s electronic tattoos are thin, flexible patches of rubber that contain equally flexible electrical components.
The thin film sticks to skin much like a temporary tattoo, and early versions of the flexible electronics were made to contain heart and brain activity monitors and muscle stimulators. While these types of devices are on their way to commercialization and large-scale manufacturing, there are some arenas in which they’re not well suited, such as when direct modification of a surface by adding custom electronics is needed.
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