ABSTRACT
Flexible and wearable sensors, which can monitor an individual’s physiological conditions in real-time, are needed in today's fast-paced world. To be helpful, such sensors must be affordable, environmentally friendly, miniaturized, easy to manufacture, sensitive, and most importantly, compatible with the soft elements of the human body. As a result, major recent efforts have been committed to the search for a variety of materials and technologies that will enable the commercialization of flexible and wearable sensors. Accordingly, this chapter provides an overview of several materials that can be used as substrates, active elements, or electrodes such as polymers, semiconductors, ferroelectric materials, graphene-based materials, cotton fibers, various metals for electroding, and technologies including lithography (electron beam lithography and photolithography) and printing (jet printing, aerosol jet printing, transfer/double transfer, screen printing, and so on). Recent findings and developed sensors for measuring vital signs and movements while monitoring a variety of biological or physiological parameters are also discussed.
