Robust Skin-Conformal Nano-Electrodes for Sustainable Health and Performance Monitoring

Wearable electrodes with high conformability to the skin allow for a second-skin-like wearing experience and record high-quality electrophysiological signals over extended time in challenging environments. However, current research on skin-conformal electrodes faces limitations due to excessive motion artifacts under real-life external conditions. Here, we report a nanoscale skin-conformal electrode that enables continuous resilient electrophysiological signal monitoring with highly suppressed noise, low-motion artifacts, and high water-resilience, all unachievable with commercial gel electrodes. In particular, achieving a conformal skin-electrode interface provides mechanical and electrical stability under repeated dynamic stress (5000 times). The 300 nm nano-electrodes with dual hydrophilicity integrate a hydrophilic nanoscale 2D MXene conductor and a hydrophobic cross-linked parylene layer, ensuring highly conformal contact and long-term stable physical adherence to skin. This ultrathin design facilitates high physical adhesion and low skin interfacial impedance for continuous, reliable monitoring of electrocardiogram (ECG), and electromyogram (EMG) signals with a greatly increased signal-to-noise ratio. As a proof of concept, we successfully recorded high-quality ECG signals, allowing for the analysis of heart rate across diverse in-field testing. We further demonstrated concurrent EMG and ECG monitoring during treadmill walking, achieving stable, long-term signal acquisition, particularly in monitoring demanding human activity.