Bioengineers at the University of California, San Diego, have developed a method that reduces by half the time needed to make flexible, easy-to-remove medical sensors. The "printing press" fabrication process supports greater research in clinical settings.
Todd Coleman, a bioengineering professor at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego, and his team had discovered that nurses required more "peel-and-stick" sensors. The original fabrication process for the removable sensors, however, involved ten steps.
To easily detach the gold and chronium sensors from their silicon wafers, the UC San Diego research team created a 20- to 50-micrometer-thick coating, made of a silicon-like elastomer.
Because the new process does not require chemical solvents, the sensors may be peeled off with any kind of adhesive, from scotch tape to a lint roller.
Coleman’s team also demonstrated that the sensors could be fabricated on a curved, flexible film typically used to manufacture flexible printed circuits and the outside layer of spacesuits. Researchers were able to easily remove the sensors from the curved film without compromising their functioning.
The sensors were also able to detect other electrical rhythms of the body, such as the heart’s electrical activity, during an electro-cardiogram or EKG.
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