"Semiconductor Devices Inspired By and Integrated With Biology", Professor John Rogers, University of Illinois

Biology is curved, soft and elastic; silicon wafers are not. Semiconductor technologies that can bridge this gap in form and mechanics will cre- ate new opportunities in devices that adopt biologically inspired designs or require intimate integration with the human body. This talk describes the development of ideas for electronics that offer the performance of state-of-the-art, wafer-based systems but with the mechanical properties of a rubber band. We explain the underlying materials science and me- chanics of these approaches, and illustrate their use in (1) bio-integrated, ‘tissue-like’ electronics with unique capabilities for mapping cardiac and neural electrophysiology, and (2) bio-inspired, ‘eyeball’ cameras with ex- ceptional imaging properties enabled by curvilinear, Petzval designs.