From the moment the morning sun shines through the curtains to checking your health on your smartphone, skin-adhesive wearable nanodevices will revolutionize our health care and medical treatment by combining nanotechnology and semiconductor processes. These devices will provide convenient and efficient health care with flexible materials, low power consumption, and real-time disease detection and treatment.
The morning sun shines through the curtains. You pick up your smartphone to check the time and open the “Health” app. I check my blood sugar, blood pressure, pulse, and check my medication prescription. This routine is possible thanks to recent technological advances. In particular, if skin-adhesive wearable nanodevices are commercialized, we will soon be able to wake up in a much more convenient and efficient way. Wearable devices that can capture and store biometric information can be connected to a smartphone or computer to monitor and manage your health in real time. Advances in engineering are bringing this technology from the movies to the real world right before our eyes.
Wearable devices are more than just electronic devices that can be worn, they are devices that are closely attached to the user’s body and communicate with it. Research on wearable devices began in the United States in the 1960s, and as industrialization began in earnest in the 1990s, the technology to develop devices for medical purposes developed rapidly. In recent years, there have been a variety of ways to wear them. These include accessory, clothing-integrated, skin-attached, and biologically implanted. Currently, not many of them have reached the commercialization stage, but considering their medical applications, skin-attached wearable nanodevices are the ones that need to be commercialized the most. Wearable nanodevices made by combining nanotechnology and semiconductor processes can be attached to the skin as simply as a sticker, which has great advantages in collecting and utilizing biometric information, and has a significant medical application.
Skin-adhesive wearable nanodevices have been in development for only a few years. A recent example is a 2014 study that developed a patch that can diagnose and treat movement disorders such as Parkinson’s disease. This research will help us understand how skin-adhesive wearable nanodevices are made and applied. There are four main elements required to develop skin-adhesive wearable nanodevices: Materials suitable for attachment to the skin, sensors to detect movement disorders, memory that runs at low power, and heaters and drug delivery devices for therapy.
First, developing a flexible material suitable for stretchable skin is the most important part of developing skin-adhesive nanodevices. While conventional electronic devices use rigid substrates such as silicon or glass substrates, skin-adhesive devices use nanofilms and nanoparticles. Nanoparticles are very small particles on the order of 10-9 meters in diameter, and thin films made of nanoparticles are very thin and light. By arranging the circuitry in the form of a spring and transferring it onto the patch, the nanodevice adheres to the skin and maintains its performance even when stretched or bent.
Second, a sensor is needed to detect movement disorders. This sensor uses silicon nanofilms, which are made using a top-down method of making larger materials smaller. The silicon nanofilm used here is a simple pattern of nanowires, which uses the top-down method commonly used to make conventional semiconductor devices. The resistance of silicon nanofilms changes depending on the external force applied to them, and the amount of current that flows through them is inversely proportional to the resistance. This characteristic can be used to diagnose movement disorders by measuring abnormal movements.
Third, non-volatile memory is required to store the measured disease data. However, using high power in a thin patch using nanofilms is not stable, so the memory must also run at low power. This part is fabricated using titanium dioxide nanofilms made using a top-down method and gold nanoparticles made using a bottom-up method. In memory, a layer of gold nanoparticles must be present between the two electrodes to retain the charge. Therefore, it is very important that the gold nanoparticles are formed in the titanium dioxide nanofilm to store the charge. When the device is at the nanoscale, accuracy is required because a change in size of just a few nanometers can significantly alter its properties. Bottom-up methods, as opposed to the top-down methods described above, create nanomaterials from a small number of molecules and have atomic-scale accuracy compared to top-down techniques.
Finally, an electronic heater and drug delivery device are required for treatment. When abnormalities in muscle movement are detected by the sensor, the electric heater is turned on to increase the temperature. When the temperature reaches a certain temperature, the drug stored in the silica nanoparticles is administered to the skin in the required amount. The small size of the drug in the nanoparticles allows it to penetrate the skin and eliminate the pain of injections, and it is a very useful solution because timely treatment is possible immediately after the sensor detects an abnormality, without the need to visit a hospital and receive a diagnosis from a doctor.
As modern people are exposed to various adult diseases and illnesses, skin-attached wearable nanodevices will be a useful device to prevent diseases and manage health by simply attaching them to the skin. A few days ago, the Institute of Basic Science announced that it has developed a “blood glucose patch” that can measure and control blood glucose with a graphene electronic skin that can be attached to the skin. Following the achievement in 2014, this research was published in Nature Nanotechnology, the world’s most prestigious journal, and was recognized as a technology that will contribute to the healthcare electronics industry. We look forward to seeing what innovative wearable nanodevices will be created by combining nanotechnology and semiconductors in the future.
The future of wearable nanodevices is limitless. They can be utilized in a variety of fields, including healthcare, sports, rehabilitation, and entertainment. In sports, real-time monitoring of athletes’ physical condition can help them maximize their performance, while in rehabilitation, patients’ recovery can be tracked in detail to provide more effective treatment. In entertainment, they can be combined with virtual reality (VR) to provide a more immersive experience. As you can see, wearable nanodevices have the potential to enrich our lives.
However, there are still many challenges that need to be addressed before wearable nanodevices can be commercialized and popularized. First of all, it is important to improve their stability and durability. Since the devices will be attached to the skin for a long period of time, they must be free of skin irritation and side effects, and durable enough to withstand daily activities. In addition, production costs need to be reduced to make them accessible to more people. This will require the development of mass production techniques and the reduction of material costs.
In conclusion, skin-adhesive wearable nanodevices will play an important role in future healthcare and medical innovation. These technologies, which can monitor and manage biometric information in real time, will enable disease prevention, early diagnosis, and personalized treatment, greatly improving our quality of life. Advances in nanotechnology and semiconductor processes are preparing us for a healthier and more convenient future.
