Reusable free-standing hydrogel electronic tattoo sensors with superior performance

Abstract

Recently electronic tattoo sensors have attracted immense interest for health monitoring mainly due to their higher sensing performance than conventional dry sensors, owing to the ultra-low thickness which results in their conformability to the skin. However, their performance is worse than wet sensors. Further, these electronic tattoo sensors are not durable and reusable when free-standing because of their low thickness and being too delicate. Here, we report a remarkably high-performance freestanding, reusable, ultrathin and ultra-soft electronic tattoo sensor made of parylene-hydrogel double layer system with high water retention over extended periods that can be used for the extended period of 6 months. The hydrogel electronic tattoo (HET) sensors consist of electrically conductive self-adhesive hydrogel with a thickness of 20 µm and Young’s modulus of only 31 kPa at 37 °C, allowing for ultra-conformal contact to the skin microscopic features. Our HET sensors are fabricated using a scalable cost-effective method on ordinary tattoo papers and are laminated on the skin like temporary tattoos and were used for electrophysiological signals recording such as electrocardiography (ECG), electromyography (EMG), and skin hydration, temperature sensing. The HET sensors, for the first time, show 234% lower sensor-skin interface impedance (SSII) and significantly lower susceptibility to motion than gold standard medical grade silver/silver chloride wet gel electrodes which are known to have the lowest SSII and susceptibility to motion. Further, the low HET-skin interface impedance leads to a considerably larger signal amplitude and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the electrophysiological signals recorded using HET sensors in comparison with those obtained using gold standard medical grade silver/silver chloride wet gel electrodes. The SNR of some types of electrophysiological signals such as EMG recorded using HET is up to 19 dB higher than gold standard medical grade electrodes due to higher signal amplitude, significantly lower susceptibility of HET to motion and lower motion artifacts. Also, the HET sensor is the first free-standing ultrathin tattoo sensor that can be transferred from the skin to tattoo paper and vice versa many times and the electrophysiological sensing quality remained high during repeated use for over 6 months.