Abstract
Extremely soft and thin electrodes with high skin conformability have potential applications in wearable devices for personal healthcare. Here, a submicrometer thick, highly robust, and conformable nanonetwork epidermal electrode (NEE) is reported. Electrospinning of polyamide nanofibers and electrospraying of silver nanowires are simultaneously performed to form a homogeneously convoluted network in a nonwoven way. For a 125 nm thick NEE, a low sheet resistance of ≈4 Ω sq−1 with an optical transmittance of ≈82% is achieved. Due to the nanofiber-based scaffold that undertakes most of the stress during deformation, the electric resistance of the NEE shows very little variation; less than 1.2% after 50 000 bending cycles. The NEE can form a fully conformal contact to human skin without additional adhesives, and the NEE shows a contact impedance that is over 50% lower than what is found in commercial gel electrodes. Due to conformal contact even under deformation, the NEE proves to be a stable, robust, and comfortable approach for measuring electrocardiogram signals, especially when a subject is in motion. These features make the NEE promising for use in the ambulatory measurement of physiological signals for healthcare applications.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 1900755 |
Journal | Small |
Volume | 15 |
Issue number | 22 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 29 May 2019 |
Keywords
- biometric sensing
- epidermal electrodes
- epidermal electronics
- nanofibers
- sliver nanowires
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Chemistry
- Engineering (miscellaneous)
- Biotechnology
- General Materials Science
- Biomaterials