Substrate-Free Transfer of Silicon- and Metallic-Based Strain Sensors on Textile and in Composite Material for Structural Health Monitoring.

New technologies to integrate electronics and sensors on or into objects can support the growth of embedded electronics. The method proposed in this paper has the huge advantage of being substrate-free and applicable to a wide range of target materials such as fiber-based composites, widely used in manufacturing, and for which monitoring applications such as fatigue, cracks, and deformation detection are crucial. Here, sensors are first fabricated on a donor substrate using standard microelectronic processes and then transferred to the host material by direct transfer printing.