Organic field-effect based sensors for body parameters monitoring

In this paper we propose totally flexible organic field effect transistors (OFETs) assembled on plastic films as sensors for physiological parameters monitoring. In the first part, mechanical sensors for pressure and bending detection are presented and some biomedical sensing applications are illustrated. A sharp and reversible sensitivity of the output current of the device to an elastic deformation induced by means of a mechanical stimulus on the device channel is observed. In the second part, the possibility of using similar devices for bio- and chemo-detection is described. By exploiting the properties of the basic structure, the device can be combined with any kind of substrate to detect for instance the 3D bending of a flexible surface and/or for detecting pH of sweat. Robot skin and wearable electronics seem to be promising applications for this emerging technology.