Ultraflexible organic photonic skin

By T. Yokota, P. Zalar, Martin Kaltenbrunner, H. Jinno, N. Matsuhisa, Hiroki Kitanosako, Y. Tachibana, Wakako Yukita, Mari Koizumi, Takao Someya. Science Advances, 2016

915 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Optoelectronic electronic skins, or e-skins, introduce electronic sensing and displays on the surface of human skin. Thin-film electronics intimately laminated onto the skin imperceptibly equip the human body with electronic components for health-monitoring and information technologies. When electronic devices are worn, the mechanical flexibility and/or stretchability of thin-film devices helps to minimize the stress and discomfort associated with wear because of their conformability and softness. For industrial applications, it is important to fabricate wearable devices using processing methods that maximize throughput and minimize cost. We demonstrate ultraflexible and conformable three-color, highly efficient polymer light-emitting diodes (PLEDs) and organic photodetectors (OPDs) to realize optoelectronic skins (oe-skins) that introduce multiple electronic functionalities such as sensing and displays on the surface of human skin. The total thickness of the devices, including the substrate and encapsulation layer, is only 3 μm, which is one order of magnitude thinner than the epidermal layer of human skin. By integrating green and red PLEDs with OPDs, we fabricate an ultraflexible reflective pulse oximeter. The device unobtrusively measures the oxygen concentration of blood when laminated on a finger. On-skin seven-segment digital displays and color indicators can visualize data directly on the body.

Subfields: Biomedical Engineering, Polymers and Plastics, Human-Computer Interaction

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ed7b0fc6ea8c56ef49070e79791d5fb032f5ecfd

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Biomedical Engineering

In Polymers and Plastics

In Human-Computer Interaction

Citations in the corpus

Lab-on-Skin: A Review of Flexible and Stretchable Electronics for Wearable Health Monitoring. (2017, background): “multilayer stack that ensures stable operation in air for about 10 hours.(39) Active layers are”
Progress in wearable electronics/photonics—Moving toward the era of artificial intelligence and internet of things (2020, background): “156 As presented in Figure 4E, the thin film optoelectronic system laminated on human skin is only 3-μ m thick including both the substrate and the encapsulation layer, which is one order of magnitude thinner than the epidermal layer.”
Nanocellulose-templated assembly of polyaniline in natural rubber-based hybrid elastomers toward flexible electronic conductors (2019, background): “The creation of soft electronics is one of the most fascinating challenges motivated by fundamental considerations in material science and technology, which promises the development of various novel applcations in the next generation of advanced electronic products, such as E-skin, flexible displays”