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Abstract Soft (flexible and stretchable) biosensors have great potential in real-time and continuous health monitoring of various physiological factors, mainly due to their better conformability to soft human tissues and organs, which maximizes data fidelity and minimizes biological interference. Most of the early soft sensors focused on sensing physical signals. Recently, it is becoming a trend that novel soft sensors are developed to sense and monitor biochemical signalsin situin real biological environments, thus providing much more meaningful data for studying fundamental biology and diagnosing diverse health conditions. This is essential to decentralize the healthcare resources towards predictive medicine and better disease management. To meet the requirements of mechanical softness and complex biosensing, unconventional materials, and manufacturing process are demanded in developing biosensors. In this review, we summarize the fundamental approaches and the latest and representative design and fabrication to engineer soft electronics (flexible and stretchable) for wearable and implantable biochemical sensing. We will review the rational design and ingenious integration of stretchable materials, structures, and signal transducers in different application scenarios to fabricate high-performance soft biosensors. Focus is also given to how these novel biosensors can be integrated into diverse important physiological environments and scenariosin situ, such as sweat analysis, wound monitoring, and neurochemical sensing. We also rethink and discuss the current limitations, challenges, and prospects of soft biosensors. This review holds significant importance for researchers and engineers, as it assists in comprehending the overarching trends and pivotal issues within the realm of designing and manufacturing soft electronics for biochemical sensing.
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Liquid Metal‐Based Biosensors: Fundamentals and Applications
Abstract Biosensors are analytical tools for monitoring various parameters related to living organisms, such as humans and plants. Liquid metals (LMs) have emerged as a promising new material for biosensing applications in recent years. LMs have attractive physical and chemical properties such as deformability, high thermal and electrical conductivity, low volatility, and low viscosity. LM‐based biosensors represent a new strategy in biosensing particularly for wearable and real‐time sensing. While early demonstrations of LM biosensors focus on monitoring physical parameters such as strain, motion, and temperature, recent examples show LM can be an excellent sensing material for biochemical and biomolecular detection as well. In this review, the recent progress of LM‐based biosensors for personalized healthcare and disease monitoring via both physical and biochemical signaling is survey. It is started with a brief introduction of the fundamentals of biosensors and LMs, followed by a discussion of different mechanisms by which LM can transduce biological or physiological signals. Next, it is reviewed example LM‐based biosensors that have been used in real biological systems, ranging from real‐time on‐skin physiological monitoring to target‐specific biochemical detection. Finally, the challenges and future directions of LM‐integrated biosensor platforms is discussed.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1944167
- PAR ID:
- 10487401
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons)
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Advanced Functional Materials
- Volume:
- 34
- Issue:
- 31
- ISSN:
- 1616-301X
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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