Abstract: Bio-integrated electronics has demonstrated exciting applications in wearable health monitors, surgical tools, as well as human-machine interfaces. Strategies for bio-integrated electronics must overcome challenges associated with the mismatch between the hard, planar surfaces of brittle semiconductor wafers and the soft, curvilinear tissues of dynamic biological systems. Although soft, stretchable electronics have been developed by integrating inorganic functional materials strategically onto soft polymeric substrates, their manufacture and performance are usually limited by the failure of stiff electronic materials such as metal, silicon and oxide under large deformation. This talk discusses the fundamental mechanics of the manufacture, reliability, and bio-integration of stretchable, tissue-like electronics. Example problems include the  transfer-printing of nanomembranes, the stretchability and compliance of serpentine-shaped ribbons, and the adhesion and conformability of stretchable electronics on bio-tissues. Electronic skin patches manufactured in Dr. Lu’s group will be available to the audience for show and tell.

 

Talk outline:

1.  Introduction and motivation of bio-integrated electronics

2.  Mechanics for the transfer-printing of nanomembranes

3.  Mechanics of serpentines as stretchable electrodes

4.  Conformability of elastic membranes on corrugated surfaces

5.  Conclusion and outlook

 

Bio: Dr. Lu received her Bachelor's degree from Tsinghua University in 2005 and Ph.D. from Harvard in 2009. She has been a Beckman Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Illinois before she joined UT Austin in 2011. Dr. Lu was named TR 35 in 2012 and received NSF CAREER award in 2014.