Distinguished Seminar - Dr. Nanshu Lu - University of Texas at Austin

“Wireless Electronic Tattoos”

Bio-tissues are soft, curvilinear and dynamic whereas wafer-based electronics are hard, planar, and rigid. Over the past decade, stretchable high-performance inorganic electronics have emerged as a result of new structural designs and unique materials processes. Electronic tattoos (e-tattoos) represent a class of stretchable circuits, sensors, and stimulators that are ultrathin, ultrasoft and skin-conformable. This talk will introduce a dry and freeform “cut-solder-paste” method to fabricate wireless e-tattoos within minutes. This method has been proved to work for thin film metals, polymers, ceramics, as well as 2D materials such as graphene. Unique advantages of such e-tattoos enable them to be a mobile and disposable platform for continuous vital sign monitoring, human-robot interface, as well as personalized therapeutics. Examples include sensors for electroencephalogram (EEG), electrocardiogram (ECG), electromyogram (EMG), electrooculogram (EOG), skin temperature, skin hydration, respiratory rate, blood pressure, oxygen saturation, as well as chemical biomarkers in sweat (e.g. glucose and lactate). For wireless power and data transmission, NFC-enabled e-tattoos based on stretchable antenna and Bluetooth-enabled e-tattoos will be demonstrated. The concept of modular and reconfigurable e-tattoos will also be introduced.

Biography

Nanshu received her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2009 and spent two years as a Beckman Postdoctoral Fellow at UIUC. She joined the University of Texas at Austin in 2011 and became tenured Associate Professor in 2017. She has published more than 70 journal articles with more than 8000 citations in the field of soft bioelectronics. She has been named 35 innovators under 35 by MIT Technology Review and has received NSF CAREER Award, multiple DOD Young Investigator Awards and 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award.

Group website: https://lu.ae.utexas.edu/ Email: nanshulu@utexas.edu