Stretchable electronics is one of the transformative pillars of future flexible electronics. As a result, the research on new passive and active materials, novel designs, and engineering approaches has attracted significant interest. Recent studies have highlighted the importance of new approaches that enable the integration of high-performance materials, including, organic and inorganic compounds, carbon-based and layered materials, and composites to serve as conductors, semiconductors or insulators, with the ability to accommodate electronics on stretchable substrates. This Element presents a discussion about the strategies that have been developed for obtaining stretchable systems, with a focus on various stretchable geometries to achieve strain invariant electrical response, and summarises the recent advances in terms of material research, various integration techniques of high-performance electronics. In addition, some of the applications, challenges and opportunities associated with the development of stretchable electronics are discussed.
On a daily basis, our requirements for technology become more innovative and creative and the field of electronics is helping to lead the way to more advanced appliances. This book gathers and evaluates the materials, designs, models, and technologies that enable the fabrication of fully elastic electronic devices that can tolerate high strain. Written by some of the most outstanding scientists in the field, it lays down the undisputed knowledge on how to make electronics withstand stretching. This monograph provides a review of the specific applications that directly benefit from highly compliant electronics, including transistors, photonic devices, and sensors. In addition to stretchable devices, the topic of ultraflexible electronics is treated, highlighting its upcoming significance for the industrial-scale production of electronic goods for the consumer. Divided into four parts covering: * Theory * Materials and Processes * Circuit Boards * Devices and Applications An unprecedented overview of this thriving area of research that nobody in the field - or intending to enter it - can afford to miss.
The book introduces flexible and stretchable wearable electronic systems and covers in detail the technologies and materials required for healthcare and medical applications. A team of excellent authors gives an overview of currently available flexible devices and thoroughly describes their physical mechanisms that enable sensing human conditions. In dedicated chapters, crucial components needed to realize flexible and wearable devices are discussed which include transistors and sensors and deal with memory, data handling and display. Additionally, suitable power sources based on photovoltaics, thermoelectric energy and supercapacitors are reviewed. A special chapter treats implantable flexible sensors for neural recording. The book editor concludes with a perspective on this rapidly developing field which is expected to have a great impact on healthcare in the 21st century.
The book starts with the fundamentals of triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs), and continues through to fabrication technologies to achieve flexible and stretchable. Then self-powered flexible microsystems are introduced and application examples are presented, including TENG-based active sensors, TENG-powered actuators, artificial intelligence and integrated systems.
This book highlights recent advances in soft and stretchable biointegrated electronics. A renowned group of authors address key ideas in the materials, processes, mechanics, and devices of soft and stretchable electronics; the wearable electronics systems; and bioinspired and implantable biomedical electronics. Among the topics discussed are liquid metals, stretchable and flexible energy sources, skin-like devices, in vitro neural recording, and more. Special focus is given to recent advances in extremely soft and stretchable bio-inspired electronics with real-world clinical studies that validate the technology. Foundational theoretical and experimental aspects are also covered in relation to the design and application of these biointegrated electronics systems. This is an ideal book for researchers, engineers, and industry professionals involved in developing healthcare devices, medical tools and related instruments relevant to various clinical practices.
Remarkable progress has been achieved within recent years in developing flexible, wearable, and stretchable (FWS) electronics. These electronics will play an increasingly significant role in the future of electronics and will open new product paradigms that conventional semiconductors are not capable of. This is because flexible electronics will allow us to build flexible circuits and devices on a substrate that can be bent, stretched, or folded without losing functionality. This revolutionary change will impact how we interact with the world around us. Future electronic devices will use flexible electronics as part of ambient intelligence and ubiquitous computing for many different applications such as consumer electronics, medical, healthcare, and security devices. Thus, these devices have the potential to create a huge market all over the world. Flexible, Wearable, and Stretchable Electronics, provide a comprehensive technological review of the state-of-the-art developments in FWS electronics. This book offers the reader a taste of what is possible with FWS electronics and describes how these electronics can provide unique solutions for a wide variety of applications. Furthermore, the book introduces and explains new applications of flexible technology that has opened up the future of FWS electronics.
With the recently well developed areas of Internet of Thing, consumer wearable gadgets and artificial intelligence, flexible and stretchable electronic devices have spurred great amount of interest from both the global scientific and industrial communities. As an emerging technology, flexible and stretchable electronics requires the scale-span fabrication of devices involving nano-features, microstructures and macroscopic large area manufacturing. The key factor behind covers the organic, inorganic and nano materials that exhibit completely different mechanical and electrical properties, as well as the accurate interfacial control between these components. Based on the fusion of chemistry, physics, biology, materials science and information technology, this review volume will try to offer a timely and comprehensive overview on the flexible and stretchable electronic materials and devices. The book will cover the working principle, materials selection, device fabrication and applications of electronic components of transistors, solar cells, memories, sensors, supercapacitors, circuits and etc.
In the last decade, the production of mechanical components to be assembled in final products produced in high volumes (e.g. cars, mopeds, industrial vehicles, etc.) has undergone deep changes due to the overall modifications in the way companies compete. Companies must consider competitive factors such as short lead times, tight product tolerances, frequent market changes and cost reduction. Anyway, companies often have to define production objectives as trade-offs among these critical factors since it can be difficult to improve all of them. Even if system flexibility is often considered a fundamental requirement for firms, it is not always a desirable characteristic of a system because it requires relevant investment cost which can jeopardize the profitability of the firm. Dedicated systems are not able to adapt to changes of the product characteristics while flexible systems offer more flexibility than what is needed, thus increasing investment and operative costs. Production contexts characterized by mid to high demand volume of well identified families of products in continuous evolution do not require the highest level of flexibility; therefore, manufacturing system flexibility must be rationalized and it is necessary to find out the best trade-off between productivity and flexibility by designing manufacturing systems endowed with the right level of flexibility required by the production problem. This new class of production systems can be named Focused Flexibility Manufacturing Systems-FFMSs. The flexibility degree in FFMSs is related to their ability to cope with volume, mix and technological changes, and it must take into account both present and future changes. The required level of system flexibility impacts on the architecture of the system and the explicit design of flexibility often leads to hybrid systems, i.e. automated integrated systems in which parts can be processed by both general purpose and dedicated machines. This is a key issue of FFMSs and results from the matching of flexibility and productivity that respectively characterize FMSs and Dedicated Manufacturing Systems (DMSs). The market share of the EU in the machine tool sector is 44%; the introduction of focused flexibility would be particularly important for machine tool builders whose competitive advantage is based on the ability of customizing their systems on the basis of needs of their customers. In fact, even if current production contexts frequently present situations which would fit well with the FFMS approach, tradition and know-how of machine tool builders play a crucial role. Firms often agree with the focused flexibility vision, nevertheless they decide not to pay the risk and efforts related to the design of this new system architecture. This is due also to the lack of well-structured design approaches which can help machine tool builders to configure innovative systems. Therefore, the FFMS topic is studied through the book chapters following a shared mission: "To define methodologies and tools to design production systems with a minimum level of flexibility needed to face, during their lifecycle, the product and process evolution both in the technological and demand aspects. The goal is to find out the optimal trade-off between flexibility and productivity". The book framework follows the architecture which has been developed to address the FFMS Design problem. This architecture is both broad and detailed, since it pays attention to all the relevant levels in a firm hierarchy which are involved in the system design. Moreover, the architecture is innovative because it models both the point of view of the machine tool builder and the point of view of the system user. The architecture starts analyzing Manufacturing Strategy issues and generating the possible demand scenario to be faced. Technological aspects play a key role while solving process plan problems for the products in the part family. Strategic and technological data becomes input when a machine tool builder performs system configuration. The resulting system configurations are possible solutions that a system user considers when planning its system capacity. All the steps of the architecture are deeply studied, developing methods and tools to address each subproblem. Particular attention is paid to the methodologies adopted to face the different subproblems: mathematical programming, stochastic programming, simulation techniques and inverse kinematics have been used. The whole architecture provides a general approach to implement the right degree of flexibility and it allows to study how different aspects and decisions taken in a firm impact on each other. The work presented in the book is innovative because it gives links among different research fields, such as Manufacturing Strategy, Process Plan, System Design, Capacity Planning and Performance Evaluation; moreover, it helps to formalize and rationalize a critical area such as manufacturing system flexibility. The addressed problem is relevant at an academic level but, also, at an industrial level. A great deal of industrial sectors need to address the problem of designing systems with the right degree of flexibility; for instance, automotive, white goods, electrical and electronic goods industries, etc. Attention to industrial issues is confirmed by empirical studies and real case analyses which are presented within the book chapters.
The field of flexible electronics has grown rapidly over the last two decades with diverse applications including wearable gadgets and medical equipment. This textbook comprehensively covers the fundamental aspects of flexible electronics along with materials and processing techniques. It discusses topics including flexural rigidity, flexible PCBs, organic semiconductors, nanostructured materials, material reliability, electronic reliability, crystalline and polymer materials, semiconductor processing, and flexible silicon in depth. The text covers advantages, disadvantages, and applications of processes such as sol-gel processing and ink-jet printing. Pedagogical features such as solved problems and unsolved exercises are interspersed throughout the text for better understanding. FEATURES Covers major areas such as materials, physics, processes, and applications of flexible electronics Contains homework problems for readers to understand concepts in an easy manner Discusses, in detail, various types of materials, such as flexible silicon, metal oxides, and organic semiconductors Explains the application of flexible electronics in displays, solar cells, and batteries Includes a section on stretchable electronics This textbook is primarily written for senior undergraduate and graduate students in electrical engineering, electronics, materials science, chemistry, and communication engineering for a course on flexible electronics. Teaching resources are available, including a solutions manual for instructors.
