Electrically compensated, tattoo-like electrodes for epidermal electrophysiology at scale

Abstract

Epidermal electrophysiology is widely carried out for disease diagnosis, performance monitoring, human-machine interaction, etc. Compared with thick, stiff, and irritating gel electrodes, emerging tattoo-like epidermal electrodes offer much better wearability and versatility. However, state-of-the-art tattoo-like electrodes are limited in size (e.g., centimeters) to perform electrophysiology at scale due to challenges including large-area fabrication, skin lamination, and electrical interference from long interconnects. Therefore, we report large-area, soft, breathable, substrate- and encapsulation-free electrodes designed into transformable filamentary serpentines that can be rapidly fabricated by cut-and-paste method. We propose a Cartan curve-inspired transfer process to minimize strain in the electrodes when laminated on nondevelopable skin surfaces. Unwanted signals picked up by the unencapsulated interconnects can be eliminated through a previously unexplored electrical compensation strategy. These tattoo-like electrodes can comfortably cover the whole chest, forearm, or neck for applications such as multichannel electrocardiography, sign language recognition, prosthetic control or mapping of neck activities.