Key Takeaways & Executive Findings
- •• This review provides an overview of recent developments in soft ionic sensors inspired by biological sensory systems, focusing on their material properties and working principles. • The features and working principles of natural and artificial sensing systems are investigated in terms of six categories: vision, tactile, auditory, gustatory, olfactory, and proximity sensing. • The challenges encountered in developing soft ionic sensors and the future research directions to overcome these issues are discussed. • Soft ionic materials offer flexibility, stretchability, and ionic conductivity, enabling replication of biological signal transmission for high-performance artificial sensors.
Abstract
Many natural organisms have evolved unique sensory systems over millions of years that have allowed them to detect various changes in their surrounding environments. Sensory systems feature numerous receptors—such as photoreceptors, mechanoreceptors, and chemoreceptors—that detect various types of external stimuli, including light, pressure, vibration, sound, and chemical substances. These stimuli are converted into electrochemical signals, which are transmitted to the brain to produce the sensations of sight, touch, hearing, taste, and smell. Inspired by the biological principles of sensory systems, recent advancements in electronics have led to a wide range of applications in artificial sensors. In the current review, we highlight recent developments in artificial sensors inspired by biological sensory systems utilizing soft ionic materials. The versatile characteristics of these ionic materials are introduced while focusing on their mechanical and electrical properties. The features and working principles of natural and artificial sensing systems are investigated in terms of six categories: vision, tactile, hearing, gustatory, olfactory, and proximity sensing. Lastly, we explore several challenges that must be overcome while outlining future research directions in the field of soft ionic sensors.
1. Introduction
As a result of millions of years of evolution based on natural selection, many natural creatures have optimized and refined various abilities to detect changes in diverse environments. For example, humans have evolved biological sensory systems comprising the five primary senses of sight, touch, hearing, taste, and smell, which all enable us to interact with the world in certain ways. These senses are, respectively, facilitated by specialized sensory organs: the eye, ear, skin, nose, and tongue. These organs use specialized receptors to perceive and convert external stimuli from the environment. The diverse types of external stimuli are converted by biological receptors into visual, mechanical, or electrochemical signals. The biological sensory systems conducting these signal conversions are known for their remarkable adaptability and high sensitivity to external environmental factors [1]. Moreover, the sensory systems are capable of conducting various functions within a single organ [2]. With remarkable and optimized characteristics, the biological sensory systems have inspired humans to replicate their own sensory systems [3–6].
Consequently, recent developments in electronics have led to the creation of artificial sensors mimicking those sophisticated human sensory systems [7–11]. However, replicating the intricate sensory systems remains a significant challenge. The rigid and electron-based materials, which are employed for conventional sensors, are unsuitable for bioinspired sensors. The conventional rigid sensors are incapable of deformation, thus restricting their use on irregularly deformable surfaces. To meet the issue, soft ionic materials have been proposed, endowing both flexibility and stretchability [12, 13]. In addition, their inherent ionic conductivity enables them to replicate the working principle of signal transmission within biological sensory systems. With these strategies, artificial bioinspired sensors have been introduced, transmitting external stimuli into electrical signals with high sensitivity, efficient power consumption, and fast response times [14–18]. Numerous advancements in biomimetics have been achieved that show impressive potential utility in wearable device [19, 20], human–machine interfaces [21–23], artificial organs [24], and so on.
Loading authentic research manuscript (Pages 1–5)...
Kyongtae Choi, Gibeom Lee, Min-Gyu Lee, Hee Jae Hwang, Kibeom Lee, Younghoon Lee (2025). Bio-Inspired Ionic Sensors: Transforming Natural Mechanisms into Sensory Technologies. Nano-Micro Letters. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40820-025-01692-6
Research & Educational Purpose Only:The translations, structured abstracts, analytical annotations, and data reports provided by SinoTechIntel are intended exclusively for academic research, internal corporate R&D, and educational benchmarking. They do not constitute formal engineering, chemical safety, legal, or professional advice.
Copyright & Intellectual Property Notice: Original copyright of the underlying source articles and experimental data remains with the respective authors, institutions, and original publishing journals. SinoTechIntel claims intellectual property only over its proprietary translations, analytical syntheses, and AEO structured enhancements in accordance with international fair use and academic citation principles.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are bio-inspired ionic sensors?
Bio-inspired ionic sensors are artificial sensors that mimic biological sensory systems using soft ionic materials. They convert external stimuli (such as pressure, light, or chemicals) into electrical signals, leveraging ionic conductivity to replicate natural signal transmission.
What are the key advantages of using soft ionic materials in sensors?
Soft ionic materials offer flexibility and stretchability, making them suitable for irregular and deformable surfaces. They also provide high sensitivity, efficient power consumption, and fast response times, closely mimicking biological signal transmission.
Which sensory modalities are covered in this review?
The review covers six categories of sensing: vision, tactile, auditory, gustatory, olfactory, and proximity sensing, comparing natural and artificial systems.
What are the main challenges in developing soft ionic sensors?
Challenges include achieving long-term stability, integration with existing electronics, scalability, and ensuring consistent performance under mechanical deformation. Future research directions aim to address these issues.
What are potential applications of bio-inspired ionic sensors?
Potential applications include wearable devices, human-machine interfaces, artificial organs, and other advanced electronic systems that require flexible and sensitive sensing capabilities.
Related Technical Papers & Translations
Direct Repair of the Crystal Structure and Coating Surface of Spent LiFePO4 Materials Enables Superfast Li-Ion Migration
The rapid accumulation of spent LiFePO4 (LFP) cathodes from retired lithium-ion batteries necessitates the development of effective and environmental-friendly recycling strategies. In this context, direct regeneration has emerged as a promising approach for reclaiming LFP cathode materials, offering a streamlined pathway to restore their electrochemical functionality. We report an integrated regeneration protocol that simultaneously repairs the degraded crystal structure and reconstructs the damaged carbon coating in spent LFP. The regenerated cathode material had superfast lithium-ion diffusion kinetics and a stable cathode–electrolyte interface, giving a remarkable rate capability with specific capacities of 122 mAh g−1 at 5C and 106 mAh g−1 at 10C (1C = 170 mA g−1). It also maintained capacities of 110.7 mAh g−1 (5C) and 84.1 mAh g−1 (10C) after 400 cycles. It could be used in harsh environments and could be stably cycled at subzero temperatures (−10 and −20 °C) and in solid-state electrolyte batteries. Life cycle assessment combined with economic evaluation using the EverBatt model reveals that this direct regeneration approach has high economic and environmental benefits.
Oxide Semiconductor for Advanced Memory Architectures: Atomic Layer Deposition, Key Requirement and Challenges
Oxide semiconductors (OSs), introduced by the Hosono group in the early 2000s, have evolved from display backplane materials to promising candidates for advanced memory and logic devices. The exceptionally low leakage current of OSs and compatibility with three-dimensional (3D) architectures have recently sparked renewed interest in their use in semiconductor applications. This review begins by exploring the unique material properties of OSs, which fundamentally originate from their distinct electronic band structure. Subsequently, we focus on atomic layer deposition (ALD), a core technique for growing excellent OS films, covering both basic and advanced processes compatible with 3D scaling. The basic surface reaction mechanisms—adsorption and reaction—and their roles in film growth are introduced. Furthermore, material design strategies, such as cation selection, crystallinity control, anion doping, and heterostructure engineering, are discussed. We also highlight challenges in memory applications, including contact resistance, hydrogen instability, and lack of p-type materials, and discuss the feasibility of ALD-grown OSs as potential solutions. Lastly, we provide an outlook on the role of ALD-grown OSs in memory technologies. This review bridges material fundamentals and device-level requirements, offering a comprehensive perspective on the potential of ALD-driven OSs for next-generation semiconductor memory devices.
Laser powder bed fusion of biodegradable Zn-4Cu alloy: Processing, microstructure and properties
Zn's natural degradability and biocompatibility make it a promising candidate for implants, however, its mechanical properties remain insufficient for bone applications. In this study, the performance of Zn was enhanced by developing Zn-Cu alloys via laser powder bed fusion (LPBF). Optimal LPBF parameters for forming stable tracks were achieved by adjusting laser power and scanning speed. Under optimized conditions of 100 W and 100 mm/s, high-density (99.58%) Zn-Cu alloys with improved hardness (68.2HV) and yield strength (160 MPa) were achieved. These improvements are attributed to solid solution strengthening, segregation strengthening, and grain refinement. The Zn-Cu alloys also demonstrated favorable degradation behavior, with a rate of 0.16 mm/year. This degradation is primarily driven by micro-galvanic corrosion between the CuZn5 phase and Zn matrix, along with refined grains and increased grain boundary density. This work demonstrates a viable strategy for fabricating Zn-based implants with enhanced structural integrity and mechanical performance via LPBF.