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Nano Research 2023, 16(3): 4100-4106 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-023-5423-y
Research Article | Issue | Published: 19 January 2023

Electronic tattoos based on large-area Mo2C grown by chemical vapor deposition for electrophysiology

Show Author's Information Shiyu Wang1,  Xin Wang1,  Weifeng Zhang1,  Xiaohu Shi1,  Dekui Song1,  Yan Zhang1,  Yan Zhao1,  Zihan Zhao1,  Nan Liu1,2( )
Beijing Graphene Institute, Beijing 100094, China
Beijing Key Laboratory of Energy Conversion and Storage Materials, College of Chemistry, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Keywords:
chemical vapor deposition, gas flow, electronic tattoo, electrophysiological signals, Mo2C film
Topics:
Nanosensors
An erratum to this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-023-6182-3
Cite this article:
Wang S, Wang X, Zhang W, et al. Electronic tattoos based on large-area Mo2C grown by chemical vapor deposition for electrophysiology. Nano Research, 2023, 16(3): 4100-4106. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-023-5423-y
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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

Tattoo electronics has attracted intensive interest in recent years due to its comfortable wearing and imperceivable sensing, and has been broadly applied in wearable healthcare and human–machine interface. However, the tattoo electrodes are mostly composed of metal films and conductive polymers. Two-dimensional (2D) materials, which are superior in conductivity and stability, are barely studied for electronic tattoos. Herein, we reported a novel electronic tattoo based on large-area Mo2C film grown by chemical vapor deposition (CVD), and applied it to accurately and imperceivably acquire on-body electrophysiological signals and interface with robotics. High-quality Mo2C film was obtained via optimizing the distribution of gas flow during CVD growth. According to the finite element simulation (FES), bottom surface of Cu foil covers more stable gas flow than the top surface, thus leading to more uniform Mo2C film. The resulting Mo2C film was transferred onto tattoo paper, showing a total thickness of ~ 3 μm, sheet resistance of 60–150 Ω/sq, and skin-electrode impedance of ~ 5 × 105 Ω. Such thin Mo2C electronic tattoo (MCET in short) can form conformal contact with skin and accurately record electrophysiological signals, including electromyography (EMG), electrocardiogram (ECG), and electrooculogram (EOG). These body signals collected by MCET can not only reflect the health status but also be transformed to control the robotics for human–machine interface.


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Electronic supplementary material
About this article

Electronic tattoos based on large-area Mo2C grown by chemical vapor deposition for electrophysiology

Show Author's information Shiyu Wang1, Xin Wang1, Weifeng Zhang1, Xiaohu Shi1, Dekui Song1, Yan Zhang1, Yan Zhao1, Zihan Zhao1, Nan Liu1,2( )
Beijing Graphene Institute, Beijing 100094, China
Beijing Key Laboratory of Energy Conversion and Storage Materials, College of Chemistry, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China

Abstract

Tattoo electronics has attracted intensive interest in recent years due to its comfortable wearing and imperceivable sensing, and has been broadly applied in wearable healthcare and human–machine interface. However, the tattoo electrodes are mostly composed of metal films and conductive polymers. Two-dimensional (2D) materials, which are superior in conductivity and stability, are barely studied for electronic tattoos. Herein, we reported a novel electronic tattoo based on large-area Mo2C film grown by chemical vapor deposition (CVD), and applied it to accurately and imperceivably acquire on-body electrophysiological signals and interface with robotics. High-quality Mo2C film was obtained via optimizing the distribution of gas flow during CVD growth. According to the finite element simulation (FES), bottom surface of Cu foil covers more stable gas flow than the top surface, thus leading to more uniform Mo2C film. The resulting Mo2C film was transferred onto tattoo paper, showing a total thickness of ~ 3 μm, sheet resistance of 60–150 Ω/sq, and skin-electrode impedance of ~ 5 × 105 Ω. Such thin Mo2C electronic tattoo (MCET in short) can form conformal contact with skin and accurately record electrophysiological signals, including electromyography (EMG), electrocardiogram (ECG), and electrooculogram (EOG). These body signals collected by MCET can not only reflect the health status but also be transformed to control the robotics for human–machine interface.

Keywords: chemical vapor deposition, gas flow, electronic tattoo, electrophysiological signals, Mo2C film

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Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 19 October 2022
Revised: 02 December 2022
Accepted: 17 December 2022
Published: 19 January 2023
Issue date: March 2023

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press 2023

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 21903007, 22072006, and 22275022), Young Thousand Talents Program (No. 110532103), Beijing Normal University Startup funding (No. 312232102), Beijing Municipal Science & Technology Commission (No. Z191100000819002), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 310421109).

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