Self-healing organic semiconductors for bionic skin

材料降解是每个材料科学家和工程师最关心的问题，降解不仅会导致失效，还会导致需要修复，这是一项非常昂贵的努力。从这个角度来看，开发使维护变得多余的自我修复材料是很有意义的。与无机半导体相反，有机半导体材料是柔软的，这使得它们非常适合用于柔性和可拉伸的电子设备，可以直接应用于人体皮肤。然而，可穿戴电子产品特别容易受到机械损伤和疲劳，这就是为什么开发更坚固的材料至关重要，比如可自我修复的半导体。这项研究将首次使合成内在自我修复的有机半导体成为可能，并将它们整合到完全柔性、可拉伸和可穿戴的电子设备中，分别是仿生皮肤，以测量与糖尿病（葡萄糖）、疲劳（乳酸）和压力（皮质醇）相关的生物代谢物。电荷将通过共轭聚合物主链传输，而额外的超分子功能（即非结合相互作用）将被纳入化学结构，以确保通过形成动态键进行自愈。新的自愈聚合物的研究将扩展到其他动态键合官能团，以评估哪种化学最适合有机半导体。随后的步骤将集中于自愈动力学和速率，以及将新材料纳入柔性电子原型设备。可治愈的有机半导体的实现，将首次允许制造直接应用于人体皮肤的轻质可穿戴传感器。这将使持续监测医学上相关的身体功能成为可能，并在开发负担得起的生物传感器和持续监测患者方面迈出了重要一步，最终提高医疗诊断水平，开辟新的治疗可能性。

Material degradation is a primary concern to every material scientist and engineer, not only does degradation lead to failure, but results in the need for repair - a very costly endeavour. In this perspective, it is of interest to develop self-healing materials that will make maintenance redundant. As opposed to inorganic semiconductors, organic semiconducting materials are soft, which makes them ideal to be used in flexible and stretchable electronic devices, which can be directly applied to the human skin. Wearable electronics, however, are particularly prone to mechanical damage and fatigue, which is why it is paramount to develop more robust materials, like self-healable semiconductors.This fellowship will, for the first time, make it possible to synthesise intrinsic self-healing organic semiconductors and incorporate them into fully flexible, stretchable and wearable electronic devices, respectively bionic skin, to measure biological metabolites associated with diabetes (glucose), fatigue (lactate) and stress (cortisol). The electric charges will be transported via the conjugated polymer backbone, while additional supramolecular functionalities (i.e. non-binding interactions) will be incorporated into the chemical structure to ensure self-healing via the formation of dynamic bonds. The study of the new self-healing polymers will then be extended to other dynamically bonding functional groups to evaluate which chemistry is best suited for organic semiconductors. Subsequent steps will focus on the self-healing dynamics and rates, and the incorporation of the new materials into flexible electronic prototype devices.The realisation of healable organic semiconductors, for the first time, will allow the fabrication of lightweight, -wearable sensors directly applied to the human skin. This will make it possible to continuously monitor medically relevant body functions and present a significant step forward in the development of affordable biological sensors and continuous patient monitoring, ultimately enhancing medical diagnostics and opening-up new treatment possibilities.