When biological tissues and machines meet, there is a fundamental mismatch: the body communicates with ions, while electronics communicate with electrons. This gap often leads to noisy signals and poor device integration.

Iontronics is an emerging field that bridges this gap by developing materials and devices that conduct ions instead of electrons, making them compatible with the body’s own language.

Hydrogels, soft, water-rich, and mechanically similar to tissue, are ideal candidates for such iontronic biointerfaces.

This poster presents the research I carried out during my summer at the Laboratory for Bio-Iontronics led by  Prof. Yujia Zhang at EPFL, where I explored hydrogels as multi-purpose biointerfaces across different scales.

• Implantable scale: I engineered microscopic hydrogel droplets with internal cavities. These cavities reduce acoustic mismatch, allowing ultrasound waves to travel more efficiently through tissue. As a result, the droplets act as promising ultrasound contrast agents and hold potential for guided therapies.
• Wearable scale: I developed asymmetric hydrogels, designed with one adhesive surface for reliable skin contact and one conductive surface optimized for electronic integration. This configuration enabled cleaner and more stable muscle signal recordings.

By tailoring hydrogels from the microscale to the macroscale, this project highlights how iontronic biointerfaces can bring medical devices closer to the body’s own language, paving the way for more precise, adaptive, and human-centered healthcare technologies.

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