Electrospun fiber-based flexible electronics: Fiber fabrication, device platform, functionality integration and applications

Abstract

Flexible electronics have attracted considerable attention in the past two decades due to their distinctive features and numerous potential applications in electronic skins, human–machine interfaces, flexible displays, wearable sensors, portable energy devices, and implantable devices. Electrospun fibers offer excellent mechanical properties and tailored physicochemical properties, which are highly promising for the fabrication of emerging flexible electronics. This article provides a comprehensive review of the electrospun fiber-based flexible electronics, ranging from the introduction of electrospinning technology, diversity of electrospun fibers, and integration strategy of electrospun fiber electronics to various sensing platforms, including an electrode, resistive, capacitive, piezo/triboelectric, electrochemical, and transistor types. These electrospun fiber-based sensing devices can be integrated within multiple sensing modalities, wireless communication, self-power, and heat management function, and benefit from the advantages of electrospun fibers, such as flexibility, robustness, high porosity, diverse fiber morphology and assembly, lightweight, and low-cost, these electrospun fiber-based flexible electronics play an increasingly significant role in daily life for the monitoring of individual healthcare, including biophysical signal detection, biochemical signal detection, electrophysiological signal detection, and promoting cell and tissue regeneration serving as implantable devices. At the end of the review, several future ways to go with electrospun fiber-based flexible electronics are proposed.