As anyone who has tried wrist-worn heart rate monitoring devices knows, they have lots of trouble doing their thing when the user is moving around. This is quite a dilemma since it is mostly when one is exercising that heart rate readings are important. At the Seoul National University in Korea researchers have created a highly flexible electronic patch capable of doing basic ECG monitoring while amplifying and storing the data locally within novel nanocrystal floating gates.
The patch is made of a flexible and stretchable silicon membrane on top of which gold nanoparticles are placed so as to draw the conductive components. This eliminates conductive films that have their unique limitations while increasing the memory capacity of the device.
The researchers tested the device on humans undergoing stress tests, reading the data from the patch six hours after the actual physical exercises were performed. The readings correlated with the heart rate measured using traditional methods.
Here’s a summary video of how the skin sensor is produced:
Study in Science Advances: A wearable multiplexed silicon nonvolatile memory array using nanocrystal charge confinement…
Source: AAAS News…