Stretchable Wireless Sensor Could Monitor Healing of Cerebral Aneurysms

The stretchable sensor, which operates without batteries, would be wrapped around stents or diverters implanted to control blood flow in vessels affected by the aneurysms. To reduce costs and accelerate manufacturing, fabrication of the stretchable sensors uses aerosol jet 3D printing to create conductive silver traces on elastomeric substrates. The 3D additive manufacturing technique allows production of very small electronic features in a single step, without using traditional multi-step lithography processes in a cleanroom. The device is believed to be the first demonstration of aerosol jet 3D printing to produce an implantable, stretchable sensing system for wireless monitoring.