Two-Way Sensor Doubling as ‘Chip-Less’ E-Skin Developed to Analyze Sweat Metrics, Heartbeat, Ultraviolet Exposure

Science technology experts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have recently developed a wearable sensor that's vitally doubling as an electronic skin or e-skin.

This notion of flexible synthetic skin with implanted electronic circuitry is now nothing new in medical science, a SlaghGear report specified.

However, this most recent innovation coming out of MIT sets apart because the e-skin does not require any dedicated chip or sensor. Neither does it require a Bluetooth module to communicate with a hub like a smartphone for delivering data.

The study findings describe a thin film sticking to the body's surface like a second skin.

Made of Gallium Nitride with Piezoelectric Properties

As indicated in the study published in the Science journal, the film is made out of a compound known as gallium nitride, which has piezoelectric properties.

This means that a piezoelectric material is a type of substance that produces an electric current when there's pressure is applied to it.

Essentially, these materials have various applications, from smartphones to hospital ultrasound imaging devices.

These two-way piezoelectric sensors, which are also described in a similar Techeblog report, when applied to the skin, can be used for identifying essential biomarkers and can be deployed for delivering data pockets as well, minus the need for dedicated wireless communication modules or biosensing chips.

The notion here is that the distinctive properties of gallium nitride can sense the movement of the pulse beneath the skin and have it converted into eclectic signals. On the contrary, it can vibrate in reaction to an electrical impulse on the skin.

A Game Changer

The team behind this e-skin idea at MIT has claimed that a piezoelectric sensor array can be employed for analyzing sweat metrics, heartbeat assessment, and even sensing an individual's exposure to ultraviolet radiation.

To identify the idea's practical viability, the team gook gallium nitride samples and bonded them to a conducting layer of gold to enhance the electrical signal yield.

As a result, the experts discovered that the piezoelectric array vibrated as an outcome of the pulse beneath the skin.

Furthermore, the e-skin was also found to be sensitive to the salt concentration in an individual's sweat. So far, there is no wearable device aimed at the masses that are commercially available and can carry out a chemical analysis for sweat.

Work is presently underway on a non-invasive approach to detecting blood sugar concentration, although so far, even tech giants such as Apple and Samsung have not been able to figure it out. This novel approach of MIT to deploying piezoelectric materials can result in the way forward in different ways.

Report about the wireless electronic skin without a chip is shown on Rajamanickam Antonimuthu's YouTube video below:

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