Sensor development based on stimuli-responsive materials for biomedical applications

Abstract

Summary Soft materials have enabled us to reach, combine, and improve properties such as stability, flexibility, and compatibility. Factors essential for flexible electronics, wearable systems, and implantable devices. In recent years, the demand for technology and new devices has urged the fabrication of diverse materials. Among them, stimuli-responsive materials (“smart”) can modify their structure in response to external stimuli. Furthermore, part of their capabilities is to conserve/combine their properties, resulting in materials with great potential for various applications. The fusion of both materials can enhance their flexibility, resistance, adaptability, and biocompatibility, amidst other characteristics. Particularly, supporting their use in biomedical and organic systems applications. The conjunction of sensitive characteristics and other flexible materials is proper for design, development, and analysis of remote and on-site working. Recently, some devices have been incorporating these features as biological and environmental sensors, smart membranes in microfluidics and drug delivery, and flexible electronics for support and coating. Part of the current and future improvement in bioinspired materials could help develop implantable, biocompatible, hybrid, and wearable devices with better sensing response, improved efficiency, and the incorporation of organic materials. The future direction of soft materials in composites with stimuli-responsive materials is to expand their versatility and tailorability. Although working with them (organic and inorganic elements) is not easy, the combination has improved fundamental physicochemical, mechanical, electrical, and optical features. This combination is the future of sensor technology in biomedical and other scientific fields. This review explains elementary and key concepts, as well as explores the use of various “smart” materials and their characteristics in developing sensors and soft electronics for implants, wearables, drug delivery, and electrochemistry in biomedical applications.