Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences

Scientists have developed thin, soft stretchy batteries and solar cells that can be applied to the skin like a band-aid.

Key points are: New device uses miniaturised batteries and solar cells, connected with wires sandwiched between layers of rubber, the device, which is about 0.25 millimetres thick, can be applied to the skin, could be used to measure health indicators in medical, sports and defence settings

The flexible power system overcomes barriers experienced by current wearable technologies, according to a report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Co-author Professor John Rogers, at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, at the University of Illinois, said these barriers included modest electrical performance and the rigid nature of current systems.

"If you think about conventional electrical devices they are all rigid as a consequence of the fact they are all formed on wafers of silicon," Dr Rogers said.

He said this was a large reason why technology such as smart phones had a stiff construction.

"The question is how do you get from that to something that looks like the skin that matches the shape of the physical body," Dr Rogers said.

The power levels in many current technologies were also often in the "range of microwatts, far short of the milliwatt levels needed to operate realistic forms of electronics, sensors and radios", he added.

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