Conformable, Low Level Light Therapy platform

ABSTRACT Well-being applications demand unobtrusive treatment methods in order to reach user acceptance. In the field of light therapy this needs to be carefully addressed because, in most cases, light treatment system size has to be significant with respect to human body scale. At the same time we observe the push to make wearable devices that deliver the treatment on the go. Once scaled up, standard flexible electronics (FPC) fail to conform to body curvatures leading to decrease in comfort. A solution to this problem demands new or modified methods for fabrication of the electronic circuits that fulfill the conformability demand (flexing, but also stretching). Application of Stretchable Molded Interconnect (SMI) technology, that attempts to address these demands, will be discussed. The unique property of SMI is that its manufacturing draws mainly from standard PCB and FCB technologies to inherit the reliability and conductivity. At the same time, however, it allows soft, flexible and stretchable circuits with biomimetic haptics and high optical efficiency. In this work a demonstrator device for blue light therapy of RSI is presented that illustrates the strengths as well as challenges ahead of conformable light circuits. We report system electro-optical efficiency, possible irradiance levels within skin thermal comfort and efficiency under cyclic, tensile stretching deformation.