2020, Li, Fei, Qu, Jiang, Li, Yang, Wang, Jinhui, Zhu, Minshen, Liu, Lixiang, Ge, Jin, Duan, Shengkai, Li, Tianming, Bandari, Vineeth Kumar, Huang, Ming, Zhu, Feng, Schmidt, Oliver G.

High performance, flexibility, safety, and robust integration for micro‐supercapacitors (MSCs) are of immense interest for the urgent demand for miniaturized, smart energy‐storage devices. However, repetitive photolithography processes in the fabrication of on‐chip electronic components including various photoresists, masks, and toxic etchants are often not well‐suited for industrial production. Here, a cost‐effective stamping strategy is developed for scalable and rapid preparation of graphene‐based planar MSCs. Combining stamps with desired shapes and highly conductive graphene inks, flexible MSCs with controlled structures are prepared on arbitrary substrates without any metal current collectors, additives, and polymer binders. The interdigitated MSC exhibits high areal capacitance up to 21.7 mF cm−2 at a current of 0.5 mA and a high power density of 6 mW cm−2 at an energy density of 5 µWh cm−2. Moreover, the MSCs show outstanding cycling performance and remarkable flexibility over 10 000 charge–discharge cycles and 300 bending cycles. In addition, the capacitance and output voltage of the MSCs are easily adjustable through interconnection with well‐defined arrangements. The efficient, rapid manufacturing of the graphene‐based interdigital MSCs with outstanding flexibility, shape diversity, and high areal capacitance shows great potential in wearable and portable electronics.

2022, Bao, Bin, Karnaushenko, Dmitriy D., Schmidt, Oliver G., Song, Yanlin, Karnaushenko, Daniil

A variety of modern applications including soft robotics, prosthetics, and health monitoring devices that cover electronic skins (e-skins), wearables as well as implants have been developed within the last two decades to bridge the gap between artificial and biological systems. During this development, high-density integration of various sensing modalities into flexible electronic devices becomes vitally important to improve the perception and interaction of the human bodies and robotic appliances with external environment. As a key component in flexible electronics, the flexible thin-film transistors (TFTs) have seen significant advances, allowing for building flexible active matrices. The flexible active matrices have been integrated with distributed arrays of sensing elements, enabling the detection of signals over a large area. The integration of sensors within pixels of flexible active matrices has brought the application scenarios to a higher level of sophistication with many advanced functionalities. Herein, recent progress in the active matrix flexible sensory systems is reviewed. The materials used to construct the semiconductor channels, the dielectric layers, and the flexible substrates for the active matrices are summarized. The pixel designs and fabrication strategies for the active matrix flexible sensory systems are briefly discussed. The applications of the flexible sensory systems are exemplified by reviewing pressure sensors, temperature sensors, photodetectors, magnetic sensors, and biosignal sensors. At the end, the recent development is summarized and the vision on the further advances of flexible active matrix sensory systems is provided.

2021, Chen, Yongpeng, Yin, Yin, Ma, Libo, Schmidt, Oliver G.

Optoplasmonic whispering-gallery-mode (WGM) microcavities, consisting of plasmonic nanostructures and optical microcavities, provide excellent platforms for exploring fundamental mechanisms as well as facilitating novel optoplasmonic applications. These integrated systems support hybrid modes with both subwavelength mode confinement and high-quality factor which do not exist in either pure optical WGM microcavities or plasmonic resonators. In this progress report, geometric designs and fabrication strategies of optoplasmonic microcavities, which efficiently bridge the interaction between resonant light and plasmonic resonances, are reviewed in detail. Three types of hybrid modes in the optoplasmonic microcavities, that is, surface-plasmon-polariton whispering-gallery modes, hybrid photon–plasmon whispering-gallery modes, and heterostructured metal–dielectric whispering-gallery modes, are considered. These modes are characterized by a largely enhanced evanescent field that is referred to as a plasmon-type field in hybrid whispering-gallery modes. Moreover, the coupling effect between localized surface plasmon resonances and whispering-gallery modes is summarized. The underlying coupling mechanisms and their influence on mode shifts, Q factor, mode splitting, and line shapes of the whispering-gallery modes are discussed. Applications based on optoplasmonic WGM microcavities including enhanced sensing, nanolasing, and free-space coupling are highlighted, followed by an outlook of the opportunities and challenges in developing large-scale on-chip integrated optoplasmonic systems.

2020, Karnaushenko, Daniil, Kang, Tong, Bandari, Vineeth K., Zhu, Feng, Schmidt, Oliver G.

Modern microelectronic systems and their components are essentially 3D devices that have become smaller and lighter in order to improve performance and reduce costs. To maintain this trend, novel materials and technologies are required that provide more structural freedom in 3D over conventional microelectronics, as well as easier parallel fabrication routes while maintaining compatability with existing manufacturing methods. Self‐assembly of initially planar membranes into complex 3D architectures offers a wealth of opportunities to accommodate thin‐film microelectronic functionalities in devices and systems possessing improved performance and higher integration density. Existing work in this field, with a focus on components constructed from 3D self‐assembly, is reviewed, and an outlook on their application potential in tomorrow's microelectronics world is provided.

2020, Valligatla, Sreeramulu, Wang, Jiawei, Madani, Abbas, Naz, Ehsan Saei Ghareh, Hao, Qi, Saggau, Christian Niclaas, Yin, Yin, Ma, Libo, Schmidt, Oliver G.

3D photonic integrated circuits are expected to play a key role in future optoelectronics with efficient signal transfer between photonic layers. Here, the optical coupling of tubular microcavities, supporting resonances in a vertical plane, with planar microrings, accommodating in‐plane resonances, is explored. In such a 3D coupled composite system with largely mismatched cavity sizes, periodic mode splitting and resonant mode shifts are observed due to mode‐selective interactions. The axial direction of the microtube cavity provides additional design freedom for selective mode coupling, which is achieved by carefully adjusting the axial displacement between the microtube and the microring. The spectral anticrossing behavior is caused by strong coupling in this composite optical system and is excellently reproduced by numerical modeling. Interfacing tubular microcavities with planar microrings is a promising approach toward interlayer light transfer with added optical functionality in 3D photonic systems.

2021, Dong, Haiyun, Saggau, Christian Niclaas, Zhu, Minshen, Liang, Jie, Duan, Shengkai, Wang, Xiaoyu, Tang, Hongmei, Yin, Yin, Wang, Xiaoxia, Wang, Jiawei, Zhang, Chunhuan, Zhao, Yong Sheng, Ma, Libo, Schmidt, Oliver G.

Metal halide perovskites are promising materials for optoelectronic and photonic applications ranging from photovoltaics to laser devices. However, current perovskite devices are constrained to simple low-dimensional structures suffering from limited design freedom and holding up performance improvement and functionality upgrades. Here, a micro-origami technique is developed to program 3D perovskite microarchitectures toward a new type of microcavity laser. The design flexibility in 3D supports not only outstanding laser performance such as low threshold, tunable output, and high stability but also yields new functionalities like 3D confined mode lasing and directional emission in, for example, laser “array-in-array” systems. The results represent a significant step forward toward programmable microarchitectures that take perovskite optoelectronics and photonics into the 3D era. © 2021 The Authors. Advanced Functional Materials published by Wiley-VCH GmbH.

2021, Wang, Yuye, Zeng, Shuwen, Crunteanu, Aurelian, Xie, Zhenming, Humbert, Georges, Ma, Libo, Wei, Yuanyuan, Brunel, Aude, Bessette, Barbara, Orlianges, Jean-Christophe, Lalloué, Fabrice, Schmidt, Oliver G., Yu, Nanfang, Ho, Ho-Pui

Detection of small cancer biomarkers with low molecular weight and a low concentration range has always been challenging yet urgent in many clinical applications such as diagnosing early-stage cancer, monitoring treatment and detecting relapse. Here, a highly enhanced plasmonic biosensor that can overcome this challenge is developed using atomically thin two-dimensional phase change nanomaterial. By precisely engineering the configuration with atomically thin materials, the phase singularity has been successfully achieved with a significantly enhanced lateral position shift effect. Based on our knowledge, it is the first experimental demonstration of a lateral position signal change > 340 μm at a sensing interface from all optical techniques. With this enhanced plasmonic effect, the detection limit has been experimentally demonstrated to be 10–15 mol L−1 for TNF-α cancer marker, which has been found in various human diseases including inflammatory diseases and different kinds of cancer. The as-reported novel integration of atomically thin Ge2Sb2Te5 with plasmonic substrate, which results in a phase singularity and thus a giant lateral position shift, enables the detection of cancer markers with low molecular weight at femtomolar level. These results will definitely hold promising potential in biomedical application and clinical diagnostics.

2021, Bandari, Vineeth Kumar, Schmidt, Oliver G.

The development of small machines, once envisioned by Feynman decades ago, has stimulated significant research in materials science, robotics, and computer science. Over the past years, the field of miniaturized robotics has rapidly expanded with many research groups contributing to the numerous challenges inherent to this field. Smart materials have played a particularly important role as they have imparted miniaturized robots with new functionalities and distinct capabilities. However, despite all efforts and many available soft materials and innovative technologies, a fully autonomous system-engineered miniaturized robot (SEMR) of any practical relevance has not been developed yet. In this review, the foundation of SEMRs is discussed and six main areas (structure, motion, sensing, actuation, energy, and intelligence) which require particular efforts to push the frontiers of SEMRs further are identified. During the past decade, miniaturized robotic research has mainly relied on simplicity in design, and fabrication. A careful examination of current SEMRs that are physically, mechanically, and electrically engineered shows that they fall short in many ways concerning miniaturization, full-scale integration, and self-sufficiency. Some of these issues have been identified in this review. Some are inevitably yet to be explored, thus, allowing to set the stage for the next generation of intelligent, and autonomously operating SEMRs.

2020, Zhu, Minshen, Wang, Xiaojie, Tang, Hongmei, Wang, Jiawei, Hao, Qi, Liu, Lixiang, Li, Yang, Zhang, Kai, Schmidt, Oliver G.

Hydrogels are widely used in flexible aqueous batteries due to their liquid-like ion transportation abilities and solid-like mechanical properties. Their potential applications in flexible and wearable electronics introduce a fundamental challenge: how to lower the freezing point of hydrogels to preserve these merits without sacrificing hydrogels' basic advantages in low cost and high safety. Moreover, zinc as an ideal anode in aqueous batteries suffers from low reversibility because of the formation of insulative byproducts, which is mainly caused by hydrogen evolution via extensive hydration of zinc ions. This, in principle, requires the suppression of hydration, which induces an undesirable increase in the freezing point of hydrogels. Here, it is demonstrated that cooperatively hydrated cations, zinc and lithium ions in hydrogels, are very effective in addressing the above challenges. This simple but unique hydrogel not only enables a 98% capacity retention upon cooling down to −20 °C from room temperature but also allows a near 100% capacity retention with >99.5% Coulombic efficiency over 500 cycles at −20 °C. In addition, the strengthened mechanical properties of the hydrogel under subzero temperatures result in excellent durability under various harsh deformations after the freezing process. © 2019 The Authors. Published by WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

2021, Rivkin, Boris, Becker, Christian, Akbar, Farzin, Ravishankar, Rachappa, Karnaushenko, Dmitriy, Naumann, Ronald, Mirhajivarzaneh, Aaleh, Medina-Sánchez, Mariana, Karnaushenko, Daniil, Schmidt, Oliver G.

The next generation of biomedical tools requires reshapeable electronics to closely interface with biological tissues. This will offer unique mechanical properties and the ability to conform to irregular geometries while being robust and lightweight. Such devices can be achieved with soft materials and thin-film structures that are able to reshape on demand. However, reshaping at the submillimeter scale remains a challenging task. Herein, shape-controlled microscale devices are demonstrated that integrate electronic sensors and electroactive polymer actuators. The fast and biocompatible actuators are capable of actively reshaping the device into flat or curved geometries. The curvature and position of the devices are monitored with strain or magnetic sensors. The sensor signals are used in a closed feedback loop to control the actuators. The devices are wafer-scale microfabricated resulting in multiple functional units capable of grasping, holding, and releasing biological tissues, as demonstrated with a neuronal bundle.