Toward Macro-Scale, Multi-Functional Flexible Sensor Sheets

Abstract

Flexible printed electronics is of great interest in the next class of device platform to detect multiple information from macroscale non-planar surfaces. As a contribution to this field, in this review, printed flexible sensors and their applications are introduced. Especially, strain, temperature, electrocardiogram, and ultraviolet light sensors on flexible sheets are discussed based on experimental results. Furthermore, by arranging the device structures and integrating the sensors, electronic skin/whisker and healthcare patch applications are demonstrated as the first proof-of-concepts. Although there are still a lot of challenges such as stability, reliability, and more functionalities for a variety of applications to move forward to realizing practical printed electronics, these developments may be able to help the future progress for flexible printed electronics. This review follows these to guide the readers to develop the system further.