Growing Ovomorphs
Yu Luo, Jadranka Travas-Sejdic, Peng Du
Sensors make contact with the body to record biological signals. Conventionally, sensor material is made of metal such as titanium, but through a chemical process called ‘doping’, non-conducting ‘plastic’ polymers can be made to carry electric current. This was the legacy bequeathed to us by the late New Zealand Nobel laureate Professor Alan MacDiarmid. Conducting polymer is now an exciting new frontier of material chemistry, with many applications for improved signal acquisition and biological capability. In this piece, the conducting polymer pillars are constructed using 3D printing, with a special technique to accurately engineer its formation with intricacy.