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Flexible self-powered biosensors

Current biological sensors require bulky external power sources. Ultrathin solar cells have now been fabricated that can power flexible, wearable sensors for the precise and continuous monitoring of biological signals.
  1. Shiming Zhang

    1. Shiming Zhang is at the California NanoSystems Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.

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  2. Fabio Cicoira

    1. Fabio Cicoira is in the Department of Chemical Engineering, Polytechnique Montréal, Quebec H3T 1J4, Canada.

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Flexible electronic devices are emerging as powerful tools for measuring biological signals, such as a person’s heart rate or blood pressure. This is because these devices are lightweight, can bind to human skin and can tolerate mechanical deformation1,2. However, although various flexible biosensors have already been demonstrated, most of them rely on large external power sources to operate. Writing in Nature, Park et al.3 report ultraflexible biosensors, used to monitor heart rate, that are powered by ultrathin solar cells. The integration of ultraflexible power sources and sensors has the potential to revolutionize the technology of self-powered conformable biosensors for applications in wearable electronics and diagnostics.

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Nature 561, 466-467 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-06788-1

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