Material and configuration design strategies towards flexible and wearable power supply devices: a review

Abstract

Flexible and wearable sensors have shown great potential in tremendous applications such as human health monitoring, smart robots, and human–machine interfaces, yet the lack of suitable flexible power supply devices remains a great challenge hindering their practical applications. To this end, it is essential to develop novel flexible power supply devices that are highly flexible, lightweight, miniaturized, stable, and adaptable for the integration of a self-powered wearable system. Synthesizing intrinsically flexible materials and providing rigid materials good flexibility by a rational architectural design represent the most straightforward approaches to prepare flexible electrode and electrolyte materials, which lay the foundation for the assembly of flexible power devices. Besides, device configuration design and system integration are also essential steps to pave the way for flexible power devices towards real wearable applications. Herein, the main fabrication strategies including material synthesis, architecture design, device configuration design, and system integration for fabricating flexible power devices are overviewed. In addition, the existing challenges and future directions for the development of flexible power supply devices towards self-powered wearable systems will be discussed.