Construction of liquid metal-based soft microfluidic sensors via soft lithography

BACKGROUND: Liquid metal (LM) can be integrated into microfluidic channel, bringing new functionalities of microfluidics and opening a new window for soft microfluidic electronics, due to the superior advantages of the conductivity and deformability of LMs. However, patterning the LMs into microfluidic channels requires either selective surface wetting or complex fabrication process. RESULTS: In this work, we develop a method to pattern the LMs onto the soft elastomer via soft lithographic process for fabrication of soft microfluidic sensors without the surface modification, bulky facilities, and complicated processes. The combination of the interfacial hydrogen bond and surface tension enables the LM patterns transfer to the soft elastomer. The transferred LM patterns with an ellipse-like cross-section further improve the stability under the mechanical deformation. Three proof-of-concept experiments were conducted to demonstrate the utilization of this method for development of thermochromic sensors, self-powered capacity sensors and flexible biosensor for glucose detection. CONCLUSIONS: In summary, the proposed method offers a new patterning method to obtain soft microfluidic sensors and brings new possibilities for microfluidics-related wearable devices. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT: [Image: see text] SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12951-022-01471-0.