Paper title: Flexible Hybrid Electronics: Direct Interfacing of Soft and Hard Electronics for Wearable Health Monitoring

Abstract: The interfacing of soft and hard electronics is a key challenge for flexible hybrid electronics. Currently, a multisubstrate approach is employed, where soft and hard devices are fabricated or assembled on separate substrates, and bonded or interfaced using connectors; this hinders the flexibility of the device and is prone to interconnect issues. Here, a single substrate interfacing approach is reported, where soft devices, i.e., sensors, are directly printed on Kapton polyimide substrates that are widely used for fabricating flexible printed circuit boards (FPCBs). Utilizing a process flow compatible with the FPCB assembly process, a wearable sensor patch is fabricated composed of inkjet-printed gold electrocardiography (ECG) electrodes and a stencil-printed nickel oxide thermistor. The ECG electrodes provide 1 mVp–p ECG signal at 4.7 cm electrode spacing and the thermistor is highly sensitive at normal body temperatures, and demonstrates temperature coefficient, α ≈ –5.84% K–1 and material constant, β ≈ 4330 K. This sensor platform can be extended to a more sophisticated multisensor platform where sensors fabricated using solution processable functional inks can be interfaced to hard electronics for health and performance monitoring, as well as internet of things applications.

Publication:

  1. Flexible hybrid electronics: Direct interfacing of soft and hard electronics for wearable health monitoring Yasser Khan, Mohit Garg, Qiong Gui, Mark Schadt, Abhinav Gaikwad, Donggeon Han, Natasha AD Yamamoto, Paul Hart, Robert Welte, William Wilson, Steve Czarnecki, Mark Poliks, Zhanpeng Jin, Kanad Ghose, Frank Egitto, James Turner, and Ana C Arias Advanced Functional Materials, 2016 26, 47.

    The interfacing of soft and hard electronics is a key challenge for flexible hybrid electronics. Currently, a multisubstrate approach is employed, where soft and hard devices are fabricated or assembled on separate substrates, and bonded or interfaced using connectors; this hinders the flexibility of the device and is prone to interconnect issues. Here, a single substrate interfacing approach is reported, where soft devices, i.e., sensors, are directly printed on Kapton polyimide substrates that are widely used for fabricating flexible printed circuit boards (FPCBs). Utilizing a process flow compatible with the FPCB assembly process, a wearable sensor patch is fabricated composed of inkjet-printed gold electrocardiography (ECG) electrodes and a stencil-printed nickel oxide thermistor. The ECG electrodes provide 1 mVp–p ECG signal at 4.7 cm electrode spacing and the thermistor is highly sensitive at normal body temperatures, and demonstrates temperature coefficient, α ≈ –5.84% K–1 and material constant, β ≈ 4330 K. This sensor platform can be extended to a more sophisticated multisensor platform where sensors fabricated using solution processable functional inks can be interfaced to hard electronics for health and performance monitoring, as well as internet of things applications.

    @article{khan2016flexible, title = {Flexible hybrid electronics: Direct interfacing of soft and hard electronics for wearable health monitoring}, author = {Khan, Yasser and Garg, Mohit and Gui, Qiong and Schadt, Mark and Gaikwad, Abhinav and Han, Donggeon and Yamamoto, Natasha AD and Hart, Paul and Welte, Robert and Wilson, William and Czarnecki, Steve and Poliks, Mark and Jin, Zhanpeng and Ghose, Kanad and Egitto, Frank and Turner, James and Arias, Ana C}, journal = {Advanced Functional Materials}, volume = {26}, number = {47}, pages = {8764--8775}, year = {2016}, publisher = {Wiley Online Library}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/adfm.201603763}, doi = {10.1002/adfm.201603763}, thumbnail = {khan2016flexible.png}, pdf = {khan2016flexible.pdf} }

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