New chip-free electronic skin senses wirelessly
A team led by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has devised an electronic skin that communicates wirelessly without requiring chips or batteries.
Wearable sensors are ubiquitous thanks to wireless technology that enables a person’s glucose concentrations, blood pressure, heart rate and activity levels to be transmitted seamlessly from sensor to smartphone for further analysis.
Most wireless sensors communicate via embedded Bluetooth chips that are powered by small batteries, but these conventional chips and power sources may be too bulky for smaller, thinner and more flexible next-generation sensors.
The team’s new sensor design, detailed in Science, is a flexible ‘e-skin’ — a semiconducting film that conforms to the skin like electronic Scotch tape.
According to the team, the heart of the sensor is an ultrathin, high-quality film of gallium nitride, a material known for its piezoelectric properties, producing an electrical signal in response to mechanical strain and mechanically vibrating in response to an electrical impulse.
The researchers said they found they could harness gallium nitride’s two-way piezoelectric properties and use the material simultaneously for sensing and wireless communication.
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