Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA.
Materials Research Institute, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA.
Sensors (Basel). 2018 Dec 10;18(12):4364. doi: 10.3390/s18124364.
Wireless technology plays an important role in data communication and power transmission, which has greatly boosted the development of flexible and stretchable electronics for biomedical applications and beyond. As a key component in wireless technology, flexible and stretchable antennas need to be flexible and stretchable, enabled by the efforts with new materials or novel integration approaches with structural designs. Besides replacing the conventional rigid substrates with textile or elastomeric ones, flexible and stretchable conductive materials also need to be used for the radiation parts, including conductive textiles, liquid metals, elastomeric composites embedding conductive fillers, and stretchable structures from conventional metals. As the microwave performance of the antenna (e.g., resonance frequency, radiation pattern, and radiation efficiency) strongly depend on the mechanical deformations, the new materials and novel structures need to be carefully designed. Despite the rapid progress in the burgeoning field of flexible and stretchable antennas, plenty of challenges, as well as opportunities, still exist to achieve miniaturized antennas with a stable or tunable performance at a low cost for bio-integrated electronics.
无线技术在数据通信和电力传输中发挥着重要作用，极大地推动了用于生物医学应用等领域的柔性和可拉伸电子产品的发展。作为无线技术的关键组成部分，柔性和可拉伸天线需要具备柔性和可拉伸性，这得益于新材料的努力或与结构设计的新颖集成方法。除了用纺织物或弹性体替代传统的刚性基板外，辐射部分还需要使用柔性和可拉伸的导电材料，包括导电纺织品、液态金属、嵌入导电填料的弹性体复合材料以及由常规金属制成的可拉伸结构。由于天线的微波性能（例如，谐振频率、辐射模式和辐射效率）强烈依赖于机械变形，因此需要仔细设计新材料和新结构。尽管在新兴的柔性和可拉伸天线领域取得了快速进展，但仍存在许多挑战和机遇，需要以低成本实现具有稳定或可调性能的小型化天线，以用于生物集成电子设备。
