The device is able to send signals related to pulse, sweat, and ultraviolet exposure, without using bulky chips or batteries.
The team’s sensor design is a form of electronic skin, or 'e-skin' – a flexible, semiconducting film that conforms to the skin like electronic Scotch tape. The heart of the sensor is an ultrathin film of gallium nitride, a material that can both produce an electrical signal in response to mechanical strain and mechanically vibrate in response to an electrical impulse.
The research team's design, detailed in the journal Science, harnessed gallium nitride’s two-way piezoelectric properties for both sensing health indicators and sending the information to an external device through wireless communication.
Currently, most wireless sensors communicate via embedded Bluetooth chips powered by small batteries. However, as health-tracking wearables increase in popularity, scientists have been searching for a way to design next...