Ultrathin & Flexible Electronic Skin Displays
Today if we explore medical electronics we will see there are lots of portable medical gadgets available that are used to measure vitals parameters of patients. Few examples are heart rate monitors, blood pressure monitors, portable ECG/EEG etc. Some of them are even available in wearable form as well. In competitive sports these days' teams & coaches believe it is important to measure various parameters of athletes while they are on field. These parameters are heart rate, blood pressure, blood oxygen level etc. For all such applications wearable electronic devices could be very handy. Then of course our love and desire for new gadgets has created wants for wearable electronic gadgets.
The problem with the todays' wearable gadgets is that they use plastic or glass substrate of few mm thicknesses making them not very flexible and thin. This especially creates problem when wearable devices are used for medical applications and in sports where they need to be flexible and move without any hindrance with movements of body parts.
The research group at University of Tokyo has developed an ultrathin and flexible substrate using alternating layers of organic and inorganic material. They have been able to attach transparent indium tin oxide (ITO) electrodes to it and made an OLED (organic light emitting diode) based electronic skin display or e-skin display that is quite flexible and thin. It is called also called PLED(polymer light emitting diode) that is thin enough to be attached to the skin and flexible enough to distort and crumple in response to body movement. It is claimed by the researchers that these PLEDs are just three micrometers thick and over six times more efficient than previously reported ultrathin PLEDs. This reduced heat generation and power consumption, making them particularly suitable for direct attachment to the body for medical applications such as displays for blood oxygen concentration or pulse rate. The research group also combined red and green PLEDs with a photo detector to demonstrate a blood oxygen sensor.
Top left is a picture of blood oxygen level monitor. Red and green polymer light-emitting diodes (PLEDs) are directed to shine into the finger. Reflected light from inside the finger is caught by an ultraflexible organic photo detector. This reflected light provides a measure of blood oxygen and pulse rate The output of the sensor can be shown on a PLED display on the back of the hand (© 2016 Someya Laboratory, The University of Tokyo.)
By Sukhraj Singh – Assistant Professor, ECE Chitkara University H.P.
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Aim of this weekly newsletter is to share with students & faculty the latest developments, technologies, updates in the field Electronics & Computer Science and there by promoting knowledge sharing. All our readers are welcome to contribute content to Technology Connect. Just drop an email to the editor. The first Volume of Technology Connect featured 21 Issues published between June 2015 and December 2015. This is Volume 2.
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