Topological Nanofibers Enhanced Piezoelectric Membranes for Soft Bioelectronics

Abstract

Abstract Electrospun piezoelectric membranes are compelling building blocks for constructing wearable bioelectronics. However, the efficiency of electromechanical conversion over a wide bandwidth is still insufficient due to the restriction between fiber dipole alignment and energy absorption. Topology optimization is a mathematical method that lets us optimize the layout of a system to maximize its performance given a set of boundary conditions and constraints. Here, topological designs as a reinforcement mechanism are developed to enhance the electromechanical response of electrospun piezoelectric membranes. The topologically optimized membranes show a 300% increase in electric output and a 478% increase in frequency response range compared with traditional electrospun membranes. With the optimized piezoelectric membrane design, the developed textile acoustic sensors can capture the human voice for speech recognition with a classification accuracy of up to 100% with the help of deep learning. Because of the universality and superiority of this new topologically optimal design, it represents a milestone in designing electrospun membranes for electromechanical conversion and high‐performance soft bioelectronics.