Achieving tissue-level softness on stretchable electronics through a generalizable soft interlayer design

Li, Yang; Li, Nan; Liu, Wei; Prominski, Aleksander; Kang, Seounghun; Dai, Yahao; Liu, Youdi; Hu, Huawei; Wai, Shinya; Dai, Shilei; Cheng, Zhe; Su, Qi; Cheng, Ping; Wei, Chen; Jin, Lihua; Hubbell, Jeffrey A.; Tian, Bozhi; Wang, Sihong

doi:10.1038/s41467-023-40191-3

Achieving tissue-level softness on stretchable electronics through a generalizable soft interlayer design

Journal Article · Wed Jul 26 00:00:00 EDT 2023 · Nature Communications

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-40191-3· OSTI ID:2469977

^[1]; Li, Nan ^[1]; ^[1]; Prominski, Aleksander ^[1]; Kang, Seounghun ^[1]; Dai, Yahao ^[1]; Liu, Youdi ^[1]; ^[1]; Wai, Shinya ^[1]; ^[1]; Cheng, Zhe ^[1]; Su, Qi ^[1]; Cheng, Ping ^[1]; Wei, Chen ^[2]; ^[2]; ^[1]; ^[1]; ^[3]

Univ. of Chicago, IL (United States)
Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States)
Univ. of Chicago, IL (United States); Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)

Soft and stretchable electronics have emerged as highly promising tools for biomedical diagnosis and biological studies, as they interface intimately with the human body and other biological systems. Most stretchable electronic materials and devices, however, still have Young’s moduli orders of magnitude higher than soft bio-tissues, which limit their conformability and long-term biocompatibility. Here, we present a design strategy of soft interlayer for allowing the use of existing stretchable materials of relatively high moduli to versatilely realize stretchable devices with ultralow tissue-level moduli. We have demonstrated stretchable transistor arrays and active-matrix circuits with moduli below 10 kPa—over two orders of magnitude lower than the current state of the art. Benefiting from the increased conformability to irregular and dynamic surfaces, the ultrasoft device created with the soft interlayer design realizes electrophysiological recording on an isolated heart with high adaptability, spatial stability, and minimal influence on ventricle pressure. In vivo biocompatibility tests also demonstrate the benefit of suppressing foreign-body responses for long-term implantation. With its general applicability to diverse materials and devices, this soft-interlayer design overcomes the material-level limitation for imparting tissue-level softness to a variety of bioelectronic devices.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: National Science Foundation (NSF); US Department of the Navy, Office of Naval Research (ONR); USDOE

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-06CH11357

OSTI ID:: 2469977

Journal Information:: Nature Communications, Journal Name: Nature Communications Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 14; ISSN 2041-1723

Publisher:: Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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