Liquid Metal-Based Soft Electronics for Wearable Healthcare

Wearable healthcare devices have garnered substantial interest for the realization of personal health management by monitoring the physiological parameters of individuals. Attaining the integrity between the devices and the biological interfaces is one of the greatest challenges to achieving high-quality body information in dynamic conditions. Liquid metals, which exist in the liquid phase at room temperatures, are advanced intensively as conductors for deformable devices because of their excellent stretchability and self-healing ability. The unique surface chemistry of liquid metals allows the development of various sensors and devices in wearable form. Also, the biocompatibility of liquid metals, which is verified through numerous biomedical applications, holds immense potential in uses on the surface and inside of a living body. Here, the recent progress of liquid metal-based wearable electronic devices for healthcare with respect to the featured properties and the processing technologies is discussed. Representative examples of applications such as biosensors, neural interfaces, and a soft interconnection for devices are reviewed. The current challenges and prospects for further development are also discussed, and the future directions of advances in the latest research are explored.