Computers Embedded in Our Skin Like a Tattoo

[Feuer Frei!]

A small electronic device slapped onto the skin like a temporary tattoo could bring us closer to a future that melds body and machine, a cyborg world where people have cell phones embedded in their throats and Internet browsers literally at their fingertips. Described in the Aug. 12 Science, the gizmos were developed by researchers looking to create less obtrusive medical monitors for premature babies and other special-needs patients. But the technologys potential for integrating computers into the human body could be vast.
This is a huge breakthrough, says nanoengineer Michael McAlpine of Princeton University. This goes beyond Dick Tracy calling someone with a cell phone on the wrist. Its having the wrist itself house the device so its always with you.
Though traditional electronic devices are becoming smaller and more powerful, they are still clunky external objects that must be held in the hand or touched. The new stretchy, wireless electronics promise to seamlessly integrate the body with the surrounding electronic world.
The challenge, says study coauthor John Rogers of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, was matching typically rigid electrical components to the soft, stretchy and flexible skin. Rogers and his colleagues achieved this by converting brittle silicon to a more forgiving state by making it very thin.


he electronic components which can include light-emitting diodes, solar cells, transistors and antennae, among other things were all constructed in a malleable net of wavy S-shapes similar to old-fashioned coiled telephone cords, which allows the circuits to work when stretched in any direction. The researchers sandwiched these components between two protective layers of polyimide, a type of polymer. These layers sit on top of a rubbery silicone film that adheres to skin with weak chemical bonds. The device can also be applied in a temporary tattoo, which both disguises the grid and makes it stick longer.
Rogers is focused on medical applications for the electronic skin. But the basic building blocks of the system can be configured in many ways for widely different uses, he says.
I think creative folks out there will think of things we havent even contemplated, Rogers says.


The superthin electronic skin wrinkles, puckers and stretches just like the bodys skin, making it less intrusive than the bulky wires and cumbersome electrodes typically used to monitor vital signs.
You can put these on someones skin and they can wrinkle their forehead. They could frown, says neurologist and bioengineer Brian Litt of the University of Pennsylvania. The materials science is just wonderful.
The adhesive electronics pick up signals from peoples heartbeats when stuck on the chest, skeletal muscle activity when stuck on the leg, and brain waves when stuck on the forehead, the researchers report. In the study, signals from the body traveled from the device along a thin wire to a computer.


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