Stretchable Circuits May Be The New Stick-And-Lick Tattoos

Looking over the smart wearable market, the initial thing that would come to mind are the smartwatches and health trackers offered by companies such as Apple and Samsung.

Taking it a notch higher, smart wearables may no longer be limited to those things consumers place around their wrist. The possibilities could radiate to touching on skin iterations that some people resort to, specifically tattoos.

While the stance on tattoos are divided considering they may affect the blood stream and open the possibility of contracting diseases stemming from the needles, an old tradition usually resorted to by kids could hold a wise alternative.

This has something to do with tattoos commissioned through the aid of stretchable circuits courtesy of a team from the University of Wisconsin.

The whole process will be more than that old adhesive process, using circuits that are stretchable and wearable on the human skin. The stretchable circuits will be made up of tiny metal blocks that snakes back and forth along an iterative S-curve.

The pieces will eventually snap together and the zig-zagging shape of the circuit essentially forms a two-dimensional spring that eventually allows circuits to be stretched and twisted without diminishing their efficacy.

The wearable tattoos were designed by a team led by Zhenqiang “Jack” Ma. Ma, a professor of electrical and computer engineering over at the university. The findings of the new wearble technology can be found at the journal of Advanced Fundamental Materials.

The stretchable circuit tattoos are considered the world’s fastest stretchable, an innovation that may eventually broaden the dawn of smart wearables.

It was previously found that stretchable transmission lines were only able to attain a minimal width of 640 micrometers. With the new method, stretchable integrated circuits are now only 25 micrometers thick.

Aside from personal fashion, these new stretchable circuits open up a lot of possibilities not limited to the medical field. With the conceptualized wearable technically a stick-on computer, it allows better monitoring of patients without having measures that would include a needle.

With that in mind, other fields could benefit from it well such as closer monitoring of workers or even allowing parents to keep a closer eye on their kids.

“We’ve found a way to integrate high-frequency active transistors into a useful circuit that can be wireless,” says Ma. “This is a platform. This opens the door to lots of new capabilities.”