EECS Tech Talk: Rigid, Flexible, and Stretchable Circuits and Sensor Systems

Stretchable electronic circuits and systems will be critical for future wearable devices and smart textiles, where existing fabrication approaches severely limit conformal deformation. This is especially true for wearable sensors and actuators, conformable electronic skins and textiles, soft robots, and emerging physical human-machine interfaces. In this talk, I present a survey of our ongoing research leveraging printed liquid metal paste materials to build stretchable electrical interconnects between electronic components. This approach allows us to build multi-layer “stretchable PCBs,” and it provides the ability to print sensors and passives using the same material. I will also describe our recent work developing methods for the heterogeneous integration of IC-based sensors into new biosensor and bioelectronic systems.