3D Printed, Customizable, and Multifunctional Smart Electronic Eyeglasses for Wearable Healthcare Systems and Human-Machine Interfaces.

Personal accessories such as glasses and watches that we usually carry in our daily life can yield useful information from the human body, yet most of them are limited to exercise-related parameters or simple heart rates. Since these restricted characteristics might arise from interfaces between the body and items as one of the main reasons, an interface design considering such a factor can provide us with biologically meaningful data. Here, we describe three-dimensional-printed, personalized, multifunctional electronic eyeglasses (E-glasses), not only to monitor various biological phenomena but also to propose a strategy to coordinate the recorded data for active commands and game operations for human-machine interaction (HMI) applications.

Non-volatile, phase-transition smart gels visually indicating in situ thermal status for sensing applications.

Non-volatile smart gel platforms that change optical properties according to temperature are successfully prepared based on a random copolymer, poly(styrene-ran-benzyl methacrylate-ran-methyl methacrylate) [(P(S-r-BzMA-r-MMA)]. The P(S-r-BzMA-r-MMA) copolymers are judiciously designed to serve as both polymer hosts for a gel, and thermoresponsive materials. In contrast to typical lower critical solution temperature (LCST) or upper critical solution temperature (UCST) systems including sol-gel (or gel-sol) transition, the thermoresponsive gels consisting of the P(S-r-BzMA-r-MMA) and ionic liquids (ILs) maintain an elastic gel-state due to their network structure irrespective of phase transitions.

Voltage-Tunable Multicolor, Sub-1.5 V, Flexible Electrochromic Devices Based on Ion Gels.

Voltage-tunable multicolor electrochromic devices (ECDs) are fabricated based on flexible ion gels consisting of copolymers and ionic liquids as an electrolyte layer. Dimethyl ferrocene (dmFc) is incorporated into the gel, which serves as an anodic species. In this study, two electrochromic (EC) materials, monoheptyl viologen (MHV) and diheptyl viologen (DHV), are employed and show significantly different EC behavior despite the similar chemical structure.