MIT News August 18, 2022
Flexible electronic materials (e-skins) can be limited by the need to include rigid components. A range of techniques have emerged to bypass this problem, including approaches for wireless communication and charging based on silicon, carbon nanotubes, or conducting polymers. An international team of researchers (USA – MIT, University of Virginia, South Korea) has developed a chip-less wireless e-skin based on surface acoustic wave sensors made of freestanding ultrathin single-crystalline piezoelectric gallium nitride membranes. It offers highly sensitive, low-power, and long-term sensing of strain, ultraviolet light, and ion concentrations in sweat. They demonstrated weeklong monitoring of pulse. The results present routes to inexpensive and versatile low-power, high-sensitivity platforms for wireless health monitoring devices…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
The device senses and wirelessly transmits signals without bulky chips or batteries.
Credits: Courtesy of the researchers