Researchers have created a device that becomes soft and flexible when implanted within the body; the technology can grip to objects such as blood vessels and nerves.
These "adaptive, flexible transistors" could help researchers gain insight into how the human body works, and could even be used a treatments, a University of Texas, Dallas news release reported.
These transistors are one of the first to exhibit the ability to hold onto their electronic properties after being implanted into the body.
"Scientists and physicians have been trying to put electronics in the body for a while now, but one of the problems is that the stiffness of common electronics is not compatible with biological tissue," Jonathan Reeder, a graduate student in materials science and engineering and lead author of the work said in the news release. "You need the device to be stiff at room temperature so the surgeon can implant the device, but soft and flexible enough to wrap around 3-D objects so the body can behave exactly as it would without the device. By putting electronics on shape-changing and softening polymers, we can do just that."
The device softens when it is exposed to heat, but remains rigid while outside of the body. In order to test the device the researchers used heat to wrap the device around a small cylinder; they proceeded to implant the device into rodents.
The team determined that after implantation the device had "morphed" to fit the rat's tissue without losing its electronic properties.
"Flexible electronics today are deposited on plastic that stays the same shape and stiffness the whole time," Reeder said. "Our research comes from a different angle and demonstrates that we can engineer a device to change shape in a more biologically compatible way."
In the future the researchers hope to make the devices smaller to make them even more versatile.
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