The EES is the result of collaboration between the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Northwestern University, and Tufts University, all in the US, and the Institute of High Performance Computing in Singapore, and the Dalian University of Technology in China.
Corresponding author of the study, John Rogers, a professor in the Materials Science and Engineering Department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, describes EES as a "a technology that blurs the distinction between electronics and biology".
"Our goal was to develop an electronic technology that could integrate with the skin in a way that is mechanically and physiologically invisible to the user," he told the press, adding that the physical properties of the electronic skin match those of human skin.
In an accompanying Perspective article in the same issue of Science, Zhenqiang (Jack) Ma, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, writes that the "eletronic skin" that Rogers and colleagues have developed will not only allow patient monitoring to be "simpler, more reliable, and uninterrupted", but will also solve many problems with current systems whose complicated wiring and cables are inconvenient and distressing for patients and their doctors.
Existing technology is already sophisticated and able to monitor a range of physiological variables, such as heart rate, brain wave and muscle activity, but the EES offers a way to do this that is more accessible and convenient, requiring negligible power, and using sensors that are nearly weightless.
The EES devices contain tiny transmitters and receivers, miniature sensors, light-emitting diodes, and networks of carefully crafted wire filaments.
The prototypes look like flat, stick-on, delicate lacework tattoos of modern art done in metallic thread, and are about the size of a postage stamp. In fact the electronic tattoo is integrated onto the polyester backing of stick-on tattoos.
Because they are so thin (less than 50 microns, thinner than a human hair), they don't need glue to stick to the skin, they use close-contact van der Waals forces that act at the molecular level, enabling them to stay in place for hours.
In their study, the researchers found the devices stayed in place for up to 24 hours, under ideal conditions.
Also, because they need very little power, the EES devices can take their power either from stray, or transmitted, electromagnetic radiation (via induction), and also partly from miniature solar panels.
Medical News Today
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