Smart Implants

Implantable medical devices are essential tools in modern clinical diagnostics and therapeutics. Our group enhances these devices by integrating wireless sensing capabilities, thereby enabling them to function as "smart" implants that transmit physiological signals to external terminals without physical wiring. We establish wireless communication through magnetic field coupling. Specifically, a battery-less and chip-less magnetic structure within the implant generates a magnetic field; an external receiver then measures this field to decode physiological data. This system is particularly well-suited for implantation, due to the inherent 'transparency' of biological tissues to magnetic fields.

(3) Millimeter-scale magnetic implants paired with a fully integrated wearable device for wireless biophysical and biochemical sensing

J Wan¹, Z Nie¹, J Xu, Z Zhang, S Yao, Z Xiang, X Lin, Y Lu, C Xu, P Zhao, Y Wang, J Zhang, Y Wang, S Zhang, J Wang, W Man, M Zhang, M Han*

Science Advances 2024, 10, eadm9314. [Preprint in bioRxiv]

(2) Submillimeter-scale multimaterial terrestrial robots

M Han¹, X Guo¹, X Chen¹, C Liang, H Zhao, Q Zhang, W Bai, F Zhang, H Wei, C Wu, Q Cui, S Yao, B Sun, Y Yang, Q Yang, Y Ma, Z Xue, JW Kwak, T Jin, Q Tu, E Song, Z Tian, Y Mei, D Fang, H Zhang, Y Huang*, Y Zhang*, JA Rogers*

Science Robotics 2022, 7, eabn0602. (Supplementary Movies)

(1) Three-dimensional temporary-magnetized soft robotic structures for enhanced energy harvesting

L Miao¹, Y Song¹, Z Ren, C Xu, J Wan, H Wang, H Guo, Z Xiang, M Han*, H Zhang*

Advanced Materials 2021, 33, 2102691. (Selected in Wiley Hot Topic: Robotics)