Nanomaterial-Based Soft Electronics for Healthcare Applications

Soft electronic devices, particularly for healthcare applications, have been intensively studied over the past decade owing to their unique advantages over conventional rigid electronics. These advantages include conformal contacts on target tissues such as the skin, heart, and brain along with a high deformability that minimizes unwanted inflammatory responses. To achieve mechanically soft but multifunctional high performance electronics for wearable and implantable biomedical devices, several strategies have been employed including designed assembly of high quality nanomaterials, the combination of unconventional manufacturing processes with existing microprocessing technologies, new device designs with deformable structures, and disease-specific system-level integration of diverse soft electronics. In this Focus Review, we summarize recent advances in soft electronic devices for healthcare applications. More specifically, we describe assembly methods for various nanomaterials, new device designs and integration strategies, their applications to textile-based and skin-attached wearable electronics, and their incorporation in fully and/or minimally invasive medical devices. Finally, this review concludes with a brief description on the future direction of healthcare applications using nanomaterial-based soft bioelectronics.