BUDDING DISRUPTORS
Flexible Electronics That Could Someday Be Part of Your Body
JIE XU — ASSISTANT SCIENTIST, ARGONNE NATIONAL LABORATORY
JUST IMAGINE THE NEXT generation of electronics,” says Jie Xu. “It’s not going to be rigid anymore. It’s going to be soft, comfortable. It can even be biocompatible, like our tissue or skin.”
From her base at Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago, Xu is pioneering flexible, skin-like electronics that could someday transform people’s lives. Implantable sensors or biochemical pumps, assist devices to increase mobility or support weakened limbs—all of these could work much better if not for the tough, sometimes brittle circuitry they need inside to function.
Think of the circuit boards in computers. Or the wiring for heart pacemakers, which have been lifesaving to many people, but also uncomfortable. They make electronics and biology seem like opposites. Xu and her colleagues are out to change that.
“The killer applications, in my mind,” she says, “are technology like robotics or
