In Situ Formation of Conductive Epidermal Electrodes Using a Fully Integrated Flexible System and Injectable Photocurable Ink.

ABSTRACT

In situ fabrication of wearable devices through coating approaches is a promising solution for the fast deployment of wearable devices and more adaptable devices for different sensing demands. However, heat, solvent, and mechanical sensitivity of biological tissues, along with personal compliance, pose strict requirements for coating materials and methods. To address this, a biocompatible and biodegradable light-curable conductive ink and an all-in-one flexible system that conducts in situ injection and photonic curing of the ink as well as monitoring of biophysiological information have been developed. The ink can be solidified through spontaneous phase changes and photonic cured to achieve a high mechanical strength of 7.48 MPa and an excellent electrical conductivity of 3.57 × 105 S/m. The flexible system contains elastic injection chambers embedded with specially designed optical waveguides to uniformly dissipate visible LED light throughout the chambers and rapidly cure the ink in 5 min. The resulting conductive electrodes offer intimate skin contact even with the existence of hair and work stably even under an acceleration of 8 g, leading to a robust wearable system capable of working under intense motion, heavy sweating, and varied surface morphology. Similar concepts may lead to various rapidly deployable wearable systems that offer excellent adaptability to different monitoring demands for the health tracking of large populations.