Light weight electronics flexible enough to wrap around a human hair

Wrist watch sized communication devices advertised in TV now-a-days will soon be so totally unfashionable. Ultra thin electronics that is extremely flexible and bio-compatible can now be developed very easily.

The key component is parylene, a class of polymers that we have known for the last few decades. It is highly stable, corrosion resistant and can form a thin film. So it has been used as a coating. It is biocompatible and has low friction. So it has been used in catheters and acupuncture needles.

Scientists have now succeeded in making electronics on parylene. Electronics  - sensors, transistors and circuits - is first put on a soluble polymer substrate. Parylene is thermally evaporated on to this substrate. 

The parylene film is released from the carrier substrate by simply dissolving the polymer. Thus you can get a 1-μm thick parylene film containing the electronics!

Electronics of this sort can easily be transferred on any object, surface and even on biological tissues like human skin and plant leaves. The scientists have even tried to put a transparent electronics on top of contact lenses to measure the pressure inside the eye, to detect glaucoma to demonstrate the concept.

A large spectrum of possibilities open up - including ultralight solar cells, implantable devices, rollable and transparent displays, smart-skin and electronic textiles.

To know more about the technique, see the latest issue of Nature Communications.

Nature Communications 5, doi:10.1038/ncomms3982, 07 January 2014