Advanced Solid Energy Solutions for Wearable Electronics

可穿戴电子产品涵盖了从智能手表和耳机到医疗传感/监测贴片再到智能服装和电子纺织品的各种产品，已经渗透到我们的生活中，为我们提供了前所未有的便利，有时甚至提供了拯救生命的帮助。虽然可穿戴电子产品已经从小众技术演变为主流必需品，但它们仍然需要用新材料和外形因素与传统电子产品决裂，才能使它们真正便携和可穿戴。需要付出巨大努力的领域是能源，不仅是在电力供应方面，而且在电力消耗方面也是如此。先进的能源解决方案需要高性能和清洁的电源以及低功耗的驱动电路和组件。目前此类能源解决方案的障碍是：a)缺乏高能量密度和高功率密度的电极材料；b)缺乏高性能、无腐蚀、无害和环保的固体电解液，以将包装重量和体积降至最低，并使外形灵活、耐磨；以及c)晶体管中缺乏用于降低驱动电压的介质材料。解决方案还应该表现出长期的稳定性，并能够在加拿大的极端天气条件下生存下来。这项拟议的研究将通过开发用于固态电化学储能(SEE)系统和印刷有机场效应晶体管(OFET)栅电介质的关键材料构建块，实现所需的能源解决方案。A See设备在固态中存储和传输能量，为下一代消费电子和汽车电子提供安全、清洁和有效的供电手段。电解液门控有机场效应晶体管(EGFET)由于其可印刷性、灵活性和大规模制造的潜力，已成为可穿戴生物电子学和物联网设备的重要组成部分。这项拟议的研究将有助于解决适合在加拿大北部气候等恶劣环境条件下部署的可穿戴消费电子产品的迫切能量存储需求。利用在以前的赠款下成功开发的材料构建块，拟议的发现赠款的范围是通过可持续和低成本的方法来进一步创新这些新材料系统，以提供高能量和功率密度且操作安全的薄、灵活和轻质的SEW设备。我们将根据以前的工作调整聚合物电解质，并将其应用于EGFET，以将操作电压降低到1V以下，以确保低功率操作。将这些创新结合在一起，将带来轻薄、灵活和轻巧的设备，这些设备是快速发展的可穿戴电子产品的关键推动因素。

Wearable electronics, covering a very diverse range of products from smartwatches and headsets to medical sensing/monitoring patches to smart clothing and e-textiles, have become pervasive in our lives, providing us unprecedented convenience and at times even life-saving assistance. While wearable electronics have evolved from niche technologies to main stream necessities, they still need to break away from traditional electronics with new materials and form factors to make them truly portable and wearable. An area needing significant effort is energy, not only with respect to power supply but also regarding power consumptions. Advanced energy solutions require high performing and clean power sources as well as low-power driving circuits and components. The current obstacles to such energy solutions are: a) a lack of high energy density and high power density electrode materials; b) a lack of high performance, non-corrosive, benign, and environmental friendly solid electrolytes to minimize the packaging weight and volume and to enable flexible and wearable form factors; and c) a lack of a dielectric material in transistors to reduce driving voltage. Solutions should also exhibit long term stability and be able to survive the extreme Canadian weather conditions. The proposed research will enable required energy solutions by developing critical material building blocks for solid-state electrochemical energy storage (SEES) systems and for the gate dielectrics of printed organic field-effect transistors (OFET). A SEES device stores and delivers energy in the solid-state, providing safe, clean, and effective means to power next generation consumer and automotive electronics. Electrolyte-gated organic field effect transistors (EGFETs) have emerged as important building blocks for wearable bioelectronics and IoT devices due to their printability, flexibility, and potential for large-scale manufacturing. The proposed research will contribute to resolving pressing energy storage needs for wearable consumer electronics suitable to be deployed under severe environmental conditions such as in Northern Canadian climates. Leveraging the material building blocks successfully developed under previous grants, the scope of the proposed Discovery Grant is to further innovate on those novel material systems through sustainable and low-cost approaches for thin, flexible and light-weight SEES devices that provide high energy and power density and are safe to operate. We will tune polymer electrolytes from previous work and apply them to EGFETs to reduce operation voltage to sub 1V to ensure low power operation. Combining these innovations will lead to thin, flexible and lightweight devices that are critical enablers for the rapidly evolving wearable electronics.