ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Nanotechnol.
Sec. Nanoelectronics
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnano.2025.1632279
This article is part of the Research TopicAdvancements in Nanotechnology for Flexible Electronics and Intelligent SystemsView all 3 articles
A Comparative Study of Flexible Electrode Design on the Performance of Flexible Wearable Electronics
Provisionally accepted
- 1Washington State University Vancouver, Vancouver, United States
- 2Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, United States
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Flexible wearable electronics are promising for continuous health monitoring, particularly in electromyography (EMG) applications. A critical factor in their performance is electrode design, which affects mechanical resilience and electrical stability. Here, this study develops multiple electrode geometries: open-mesh, closed-mesh, and island-bridge, fabricated from gold-coated polyimide substrates to offer the best performance in EMG detection. Under standardized bending and stretching tests, the island-bridge design shows the lowest resistance variation (±1.61%), while the closed-mesh design provides balanced performance across various strains. EMG tests indicate that the closed-mesh electrodes deliver the highest signal-to-noise ratios (up to 14.83 dB) with minimal motion artifacts. Although the open-mesh design is flexible, it has lower electrical stability. In summary, the closedmesh performs best overall, the open-mesh is better for handling motion artifacts, and the island-bridge is ideal for areas with minimal movement.
Keywords: flexible electronics1, electrode design2, health monitoring3, wearable electronics4, electromyography5
Received: 20 May 2025; Accepted: 07 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Khan, Ban, Yeo and Kim. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Jong-Hoon Kim, Washington State University Vancouver, Vancouver, United States
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