UC San Diego

Over the past decade, recent advances in material science, nanotechnology and structural engineering have emerge with novel and versatile tools demonstrating considerable promise for the adoption of flexible and stretchable electronics on into everyday life. These systems have opened up new avenues for body integrated-electronics that were earlier impossible to conceive. This dissertation is devoted to demonstrate the recent advances in printed devices by utilizing new material-design strategies towards the fabrication of smart printed electronics and biomedical devices.The first theme provides an overview on the design and fabrication of printed electronics and summarized the current limitation and challenges. Opportunities and future prospects are discussed along this chapter leveraging capabilities this exciting field. The second theme provides a demonstration of the combination of structural strategies with material innovation using a thick film printing process for the fabrication of all printed “island-Bridge” electrochemical devices. A dynamic conductive filler strategy is used demonstrating ability of such devices to sustain large mechanical deformation. This work paves the way for the development of high conformal low-cost epidermal devices.

The Third theme demonstrate the use of printed materials for the development of printed robotics capable of autonomous propulsion and “on-the-fly” structural recovery. Incorporation of printed magnetic Nd2Fe14B microparticles in specialized printed strips results in rapid reorientation and reattachment of the moving tail to its complementary broken static piece to restore the original structure and propulsion behavior. The robotic swimmers display functional recovery independent of user input. The fourth theme explores the use of micro molding for the development of a wearable transdermal patch. This technology was demonstrated using an acoustic droplet vaporization methodology as an effective noninvasive transdermal platform, for a fast local delivery of the anesthetic agent lidocaine.