Too difficult to see a doctor and too expensive to see a doctor” has become one of the major public complaints in China today. In addition to relying on government support (such as appointment systems, centralized procurement of medicines), the improvement of laws and regulations, and the popularization of medical knowledge, wearable electronic technologies for health monitoring through the identification of common diseases (such as colds, fever), the early detection of serious diseases and an emergency SOS call for sudden illness can greatly reduce people's dependence on doctors.
Thin-film transistors (TFTs) are the core components in the wearable electronics. The large-area/roll-to-roll manufacturing, device scaling and compatibility to human body are critical issues. Thus, this report is divided into four parts: 1) Expeditious, scalable solution fabrication of the flexible metal oxide TFTs with excellent performance. 2) In order to meet wearability requirements, metal oxide semiconducting nanofibers, fabricated by high-throughput blow-spinning technology, are integrated with soft substrates to achieve flexible/stretchable devices. These wearable devices are demonstrated for detection those related to human activities such as UV, pressure, temperature, exhalation, etc. 3) Efficient bottom-up patterning and high-resolution patterning within two steps for organic films and relevant flexible devices/sensors will be discussed. 4) Breath figure-derived porous organic films are fabricated for TFT-based sensors and stretchable electronics.
Binghao Wang is a Project Researcher at Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering and Information Systems, The University of Tokyo, Japan. He is working on ultra-flexible optoelectronic devices in Prof. Takao Someya’s group. Previously, he worked and studied at Northwestern University for five years, under the supervision of Prof. Tobin J. Marks and Prof. Antonio Facchetti. He obtained his B.E., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from Soochow University, China. His research interests include flexible/stretchable and wearable organic/inorganic electronics for display and sensor applications. He has written 1 book chapter, applied 3 patents and more than 40 peer-reviewed papers in Chem. Rew., PNAS, Nat. Comm., Sci. Adv., Adv. Mater., etc. He serves as the Youth Editor of Chinese Chemical Letters and the Guest Editor for Micromachines. He is also the founder of the specialized platform “Wearable_Electronics” on Wechat.