Electronic skin

Tiny, nearly invisible devices stick to skin, ‘talk’ to computers

James Bond and his enemies would be interested in the goings-on at the laboratory of John Rogers. So would Batman, the Spy Kids, Darth Vader and their enemies. That’s because Rogers, a materials scientist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, mixes electronics with the human body to create new devices not found even in science fiction.

Rogers and his collaborators have built an electronic device that’s smaller than a postage stamp and sticks to the skin like a temporary tattoo. The device’s possible users — patients, athletes, doctors, secret agents, you — are limited only by their imaginations.

Tattoos you can use

Rogers doesn’t have any permanent tattoos. But he says he’s been wearing “more and more” of the temporary kind to hide the stuck-on electronic circuits. (He even concealed one device behind a blue pirate tattoo.) Temporary tattoos use a simple and inexpensive way to adhere, or stick, to skin: a good sticky backing that stretches and flexes with skin’s natural motion.

More than skin deep

The scientists have found a way to extend the technology deeper than the body’s surface. In 2010, they introduced an electrical plastic wrap that can be attached to a person’s heart during open-heart surgery. Electronic circuits and instruments record blood flow and electric current, which means the material can alert doctors to hidden problems with a patient’s ticker. The team has already shown that a device attached to the surface of the brain can capture the electrical signals of an epileptic seizure.

Silicon: The problem and the answer

Scientists have been attaching electrical gadgets to skin for more than 80 years. In 1929, a German doctor named Hans Berger invented a device that attaches to the scalp and measures the brain’s electrical activity. His invention, called an electroencephalograph (EEG), lets doctors