I-Corps: MicroFlotronics: Flexible Transparent, Pressure-Sensitive Microfluidic Films for Biomedical Applications

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There is an increasing demand for sensitive, flexible, and low-cost pressure sensing solutions for health monitoring, wearable sensing, robotic and prosthetic applications. This proposal describes a translational research plan to develop highly sensitive pressure sensing devices to map pressure distributions at an ultrafine spatial resolution. The proposed sensing technology offers a powerful alternative to the solid-state pressure sensors, by providing an unprecedented sensitivity and ultrafast response time in a completely transparent, flexible and adaptive platform. Potential applications can be integration with existing medical applications: given its low-cost and flexible design,the sensor can be readily integrated into existing medical devices (e.g., disposable catheters) for physiological pressure monitoring; and artificial skin with digital sensation: our ultrasensitive and flexible sensor film can be integrated onto the soft fingertip surface of a glove to stimulate the sense of touch.This proposal intends to deliver the world first microfluidics-enabled flexible pressure-sensitive film for biomedical applications, as a powerful alternative to the existing solid-state pressure sensors. The proposed microflotronics sensors offer several unique advantages over existing pressure sensing technologies: ultrahigh sensitivity, low cost, rapid mechanical response, ultrathin profile, soft skin-like construct, stable sensing units, and optical transparency. The microfluidics-enabled sensing devices pioneered by this team have shown promise in an array of unconventional applications in which a minute amount of liquid sensing elements rapidly respond to an external load by altering the physical properties or geometries.