From Energy Autonomous Wearables to Mycelium-Derived Materials for Flexible Electronics

Soft electronic devices provide unique opportunities in our quest for a more sustainable future. Their adaptive and responsive nature renders them attractive as wearables in health monitoring. Among the grand challenges in the field are untethered operation, high performance sustainable materials and end-of-lifetime considerations in such complex (soft) systems. This talk introduces materials and fabrication methods for thin, light, flexible and stable quasi-2D perovskite solar cells with extreme mechanical properties that are unmatched in power produced per weight (up to 44 W/g) and show record breaking power conversion efficiency under indoor light illumination. Enabled through these photovoltaic devices, we demonstrate a set of applications that span from battery free medical wearables able to analyze sweat to ultra-conformable X-Ray photodetectors and energy-autonomous lightweight drones. Advancing sustainable flexible electronics, we demonstrate new concepts for enhanced fungal mycelium skins as high performance yet biodegradable substrate material. We introduce post-treatment methods for naturally grown flexible mycelial mats that result in thin films with reduced surface roughness and improved mechanical and electrical characteristics. Flexible circuit boards from these fungal materials offer solutions for next-generation (bio)electronic systems within a sustainable, circular economy.