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Highlights A comprehensive review focused on the whole systems of the soft robotics with artificial intelligence, which can feel, think, react and interact with humans, is presented. The design strategies concerning about various aspects of the soft robotics, like component materials, device structures, prepared technologies, integrated method, and potential applications, are summarized. A broad outlook on the future considerations for the soft robots is proposed.

Abstract For the need of direct contact with the skin, electronic skins (E‐skins) should not only fulfill electric functions, but also ensure comfort during wearing, including permeability, waterproofness, and easy removal. Herein, the study has developed a self‐adhesive, detach‐on‐demand, breathable, and waterproof E‐skin (PDSC) for motion sensing and wearable comfort by electrospinning styrene‐isoprene block copolymer rubber with carbon black nanosheets as the sensing layer and liner copolymers of N, N‐dimethylacrylamide, n‐octadecyl acrylate and lauryl methacrylate as the adhesive layer. The high elasticity and microfiber network structure endow the PDSC with good sensitivity and high linearity for strain sensing. The hydrophobic and crystallizable adhesive layer ensures robust, waterproof, and detaching‐on‐demand skin adhesion. Meanwhile, the fiber structure enables the PDSC good air and water permeability. The integration of electric and wearable functions endows the PDSC with great potential for motion sensing during human activities as both the sensing and wearable performances.

Abstract Wearable strain sensors have attracted research interest owing to their potential within digital healthcare, offering smarter tracking, efficient diagnostics, and lower costs. Unlike rigid sensors, fiber‐based ones compete with their flexibility, durability, adaptability to body structures as well as eco‐friendliness to environment. Here, the sustainable fiber‐based wearable strain sensors for digital health are reviewed, and material, fabrication, and practical healthcare aspects are explored. Typical strain sensors predicated on various sensing modalities, be it resistive, capacitive, piezoelectric, or triboelectric, are explained and analyzed according to their strengths and weaknesses toward fabrication and applications. The applications in digital healthcare spanning from body area sensing networks, intelligent health management, and medical rehabilitation to multifunctional healthcare systems are also evaluated. Moreover, to create a more complete digital health network, wired and wireless methods of data collection and examples of machine learning are elaborated in detail. Finally, the prevailing challenges and prospective insights into the advancement of novel fibers, enhancement of sensing precision and wearability, and the establishment of seamlessly integrated systems are critically summarized and offered. This endeavor not only encapsulates the present landscape but also lays the foundation for future breakthroughs in fiber‐based wearable strain sensor technology within the domain of digital health.

Highlights Naturally crosslinked carbonaceous liquid metal aqueous printable ink mediated by biopolymers. E-textile with conductivity, stability, wearability, and aesthetic characteristics. Multi-applications in health monitoring, pressure sensing, and energy harvesting.

Abstract The operation of traditional aqueous-electrolyte zinc-ion batteries is adversely affected by the uncontrollable growth of zinc dendrites and the occurrence of side reactions. These problems can be avoided by the development of functional hydrogel electrolytes as replacements for aqueous electrolytes. However, the mechanism by which most hydrogel electrolytes inhibit the growth of zinc dendrites on a zinc anode has not been investigated in detail, and there is a lack of a large-scale recovery method for mainstream hydrogel electrolytes. In this paper, we describe the development of a recyclable and biodegradable hydrogel electrolyte based on natural biomaterials, namely chitosan and polyaspartic acid. The distinctive adsorptivity and inducibility of chitosan and polyaspartic acid in the hydrogel electrolyte triggers a double coupling network and an associated synergistic inhibition mechanism, thereby effectively inhibiting the side reactions on the zinc anode. In addition, this hydrogel electrolyte played a crucial role in an aqueous acid-based Zinc/MnO2 battery, by maintaining its interior two-electron redox reaction and inhibiting the formation of zinc dendrites. Furthermore, the sustainable biomass-based hydrogel electrolyte is biodegradable, and could be recovered from the Zinc/MnO2 battery for subsequent recycling.

Abstract Nonfullerene organic solar cells (OSCs) have achieved breakthrough with pushing the efficiency exceeding 17%. While this shed light on OSC commercialization, high-performance flexible OSCs should be pursued through solution manufacturing. Herein, we report a solution-processed flexible OSC based on a transparent conducting PEDOT:PSS anode doped with trifluoromethanesulfonic acid (CF3SO3H). Through a low-concentration and low-temperature CF3SO3H doping, the conducting polymer anodes exhibited a main sheet resistance of 35 Ω sq−1 (minimum value: 32 Ω sq−1), a raised work function (≈ 5.0 eV), a superior wettability, and a high electrical stability. The high work function minimized the energy level mismatch among the anodes, hole-transporting layers and electron-donors of the active layers, thereby leading to an enhanced carrier extraction. The solution-processed flexible OSCs yielded a record-high efficiency of 16.41% (maximum value: 16.61%). Besides, the flexible OSCs afforded the 1000 cyclic bending tests at the radius of 1.5 mm and the long-time thermal treatments at 85 °C, demonstrating a high flexibility and a good thermal stability.

Abstract Wearable supercapacitors (SCs) are gaining prominence as portable energy storage devices. To develop high-performance wearable SCs, the significant relationship among material, structure, and performance inspired us with a delicate design of the highly wearable embroidered supercapacitors made from the conductive fibers composited. By rendering the conductive interdigitally patterned embroidery as both the current collector and skeleton for the SCs, the novel pseudocapacitive material cobalt phosphides were then successfully electrodeposited, forming the first flexible and wearable in-plane embroidery SCs. The electrochemical measurements manifested that the highest specific capacitance was nearly 156.6 mF cm−2 (65.72 F g−1) at the current density of 0.6 mA cm−2 (0.25 A g−1), with a high energy density of 0.013 mWh cm−2 (5.55 Wh kg−1) at a power density of 0.24 mW cm−2 (100 W kg−1). As a demonstration, a monogrammed pattern was ingeniously designed and embroidered on the laboratory gown as the wearable in-plane SCs, which showed both decent electrochemical performance and excellent flexibility.

Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) have attracted many researchers’ attention with their remarkable potential despite the fact that the practical implementation requires further improvement in their electric performance. In this work, a novel graphene phase two-dimension material, graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4), was employed for the development of a TENG material with enhanced features. An electrospun nanofibrous PA66 membrane doped with g-C3N4 was fabricated as a multifunctional TENG for harvesting different kinds of mechanical energy and detecting human motions. By utilizing the innovative 2D material in PA66 solution for electrospinning, the as-made TENG showed a two times enhancement in electrical performance as compared to the control device, and also had the advantages of lightweight, softness, high porosity, and rugged interface properties. The assembled TENG with 4 cm2 could light up 40 light-emitting diodes by gentle hand clapping and power electronic watches or calculators with charging capacitors. At a given impact force of 40 N and 3 Hz, the as-made TENG can generate an open-circuit voltage of 80 V, short current of ±3 µA, charge transfer of 50 nC, and a maximum power density of 45 mW/m2 at a load resistance of 500 MΩ. The UV light sensitivity of TENG was also improved via g-C3N4 doping, showing that charge transfer is very sensitive with a two times enhancement with dopant. For the demonstration of applications, the g-C3N4 doped TENG was fabricated into an energy flag to scavenge wind energy and sensor devices for detecting human motions.

Abstract Breath figures (BFs) are a kind of water droplet arrays that can be formed by condensing aqueous vapor onto a cold surface, such as dewy phenomenon on a spider web. This study developed a BF-inspired approach for direct introduction of desired materials onto the textile surfaces with three-dimensionally conformal porous microstructures by the evaporation of solution-coated fabric under high humidity environment, which brings a brand-new kind of modified textiles, three-dimensionally conformal porous microstructured fabrics (CPMFs). Such kind of CPMFs can possess customized multifunctional properties of introduced materials, and meanwhile maintain the inherent properties and unique texture features of fabrics. This nature-inspired BF approach is robust and versatile for customized preparation of CPMFs based on different fabrics with different common polymers. Moreover, it is also feasible for one-step functionalization of CPMFs by the incorporation of nanoparticles (such as titanium dioxide nanoparticles, TiO2 NPs) into the porous microstructures during the BF process. Comparing to the sample modified without porous microstructures, the resultant TiO2 NPs-incorporated CPMFs show an obviously enhanced performance on photocatalytic degradation of pollutants under the same ultraviolet irradiation conditions.

Strabismus is one of the most common vision disorders in preschool children. It can cause amblyopia and even permanent vision loss. In addition to a vision problem, strabismus brings to both children and adults serious negative impacts in their daily life, education, employment etc. Timely diagnosis of strabismus is thus crucial. However, traditional diagnosis methods conducted by ophthalmologists rely significantly on their experiences, making the diagnosis results subjective. It is also inconvenient for those methods being used for strabismus examination in large communities such as schools. In light of that, in this Letter, the authors develop an objective, digital and automatic system based on eye-tracking technique for diagnosing strabismus. The system exploits eye-tracking technique to acquire a person's eye gaze data while he or she is looking at some targets. A group of features are proposed to characterise the gaze data. The person's strabismus condition can be diagnosed according to the features. A strabismus gaze dataset is built using the system. Experimental results on the dataset demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed system for strabismus diagnosis.

Three-dimensionally conformal porous microstructured fabrics (3CPMFs) are a new kind of modified fabrics with three-dimensionally conformal porous microstructures of introduced materials recently developed for wearable technology. They can effectively introduce customized functional performance based on the choice of brick materials, while at the same time maintain the excellent inherent properties of textiles. In this paper, based on the introduction of polystyrene with low thermal conductivity at only 8 × 10−4 g cm−2, we developed a kind of polyester fabric-based 3CPMF with enhanced thermal insulation, while maintaining its unique fabric texture, flexibility, moisture permeability, and light weight. It was demonstrated to be a good textile material for the fabrication of wearable electrothermal textile (ET) devices with enhanced thermal management. Compared to pristine fabric-based ET devices, this kind of 3CPMF-based ET devices can obtain higher temperatures under the same input power to provide thermal comfort for human beings, while saving more electric power to achieve the same thermal equilibrium temperature. We believe that, based on the choice of different functional materials and textiles, a wide range of 3CPMFs with customized functionalities and properties can be designed and developed for the realization of a brand-new class of truly wearable devices with desired functional performance and daily garment-like safety and comfort.

Enormous efforts are invested in developing multi-energy harvesting technology with simple configuration and high conversion efficiency, and light-assisted nanogenerators are considered a promising solution. Multifunctional perovskites are explored for this light-assisted nanogenerator, owing to its powerful platform characteristics for integrating multiple energy conversion mechanisms and multi-effects coupling phenomenon. Therefore, with the rapid progress of this emerging field, a timely and comprehensive review of this light-assisted nanogenerator is urgently needed for updating the fundamental understanding of coupling mechanism and material-device-performance relationship. In this review, recent advancements of the perovskite light-assisted nanogenerator with their advanced designs are presented. First, the fundamental properties co-existing in perovskites are briefly introduced, as well as some emerging effects (e.g., flexoelectric). Subsequently, the further coupling mechanism between photovoltaic effect and other energy conversion effects in different light-assisted nanogenerator are discussed in categories. And the output characteristics and potential application of various coupled devices are systematically described from the perspective of perovskites selection and device engineering. Finally, some perspectives on existing challenges and further development for light-assisted nanogenerator are put forward, with the aim to provide useful guidance for the design of advanced devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]