IEEE Journal on Flexible Electronics - J-FLEX

09/09/2026

The latest issue of J-FLEX (Volume 5, Issue 9) was released today!

Gulshan Kumar et al., present a highly sensitive ammonia (NH3) gas sensor based on zinc oxide/reduced graphene oxide (ZnO/rGO) heterostructure thin film, demonstrating enhanced interfacial charge transfer and improved sensing performance at room temperature (RT).

Sachin et al., reports the efficient development of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) nanofibers doped with copper methacrylate (Cu–MAA) to form metal-organic clusters (MOCs), demonstrating notable energy generation and harvesting capabilities, and having strong potential for flexible electronics applications.

Mukuljeet Singh Mehrolia presents a compact model of the fabricated low-voltage, flexible thin-film transistor (TFT) with a PBTTT-C14-based active semiconductive layer and a strontium zirconate (SrZrOx)/polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) blend-based high-k dielectric layer for the half adder/subtractor and cross-coupled inverter circuit implementation.

Anil Pandya et al., present a fully carbon-based thermoelectric sensor fabricated using few-layer graphene (FLG) traces, and pencil-grade (HB and 6B) graphite paints on standard Xerox paper.

About the Front Cover: A flexible compatible ZnO/rGO heterostructure NH3 sensor exploits Schottky barrier modulation to enhance charge transport and achieve high-performance gas sensing. AI-assisted prediction enables the accurate estimation of NH3 concentration, demonstrating the integration of flexible electronics with intelligent gas sensing.

About the Back Cover: The cover illustrates a flexible piezoelectric nanogenerator (PENG) based on electrospun PVDF–Cu-MAA nanofibers that converts mechanical deformation into electrical energy for self-powered electronics. Mechanical force applied to the flexible device generates an electrical output that is rectified, stored, and regulated through a power management circuit before powering low-power electronic components and environmental sensing modules. The acquired electrical signals are processed to enable integration with sensing platforms. The inset scanning electron micrograph highlights the electrospun nanofiber network, while the experimentally measured electrical waveform represents the harvested output. This demonstrates the integration of flexible energy harvesting, power management, and autonomous electronics, highlighting the potential of self-powered technologies for wearable systems and emerging electronics. Cover art by Sachin.

https://ieee-jflex.org/

J-FLEX is a joint publication of IEEE Sensors Council (SC), IEEE Electron Devices Society (EDS), and IEEE Circuits and Systems Society (CASS).

09/03/2026

See our recent Editorial, entitled “Bringing Attention to the Growing Social Impact of Biomedical Devices” in IEEE Technology and Society Magazine [vol. 45, Issue 3, September 2026]. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/MTS.2026.3717156

Ketra Schmitt; Paul Berger; Katina Michael

Gap Instead of a Special Issue

In July 2026, we published the penultimate special issue in IEEEJ-FLEX, along with an editorial titled: “Social Impact of the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT): From Body Wearables to Brain Implants.” The submitted papers offer a unique outlook on the state-of-the-art medical technology applications of flexible electronics. The focus and topic of the selected papers found in this issue highlighted a gap in IoMT. We encourage readers to peruse this issue:

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11594436

While we were unable to satisfy our hope of an unprecedented IEEE triple-special issue, we feel we were able to raise awareness among the technical biomedical and corresponding social implications communities. We received a handful of papers that did not meet reviewer expectations, and thus, we decided to write a brief editorial instead.

Our initial goal for the triple-special issue was to highlight scholarship on the social, legal, and ethical impacts of wearable and implantable biomedical technologies, along with critical scholarship on the ways they are adopted, designed, implemented, and maintained, and how those practices might be mediated by access issues due to socioeconomic factors, or use barriers related to insurance or local technology environments. Ideally, a special issue in IEEE MTS might have included an exploration of how IoMT is socially shaped, or how hacker culture and do-it-yourself (DIY) efforts could result in workable personal healthcare technologies, and how implementation open access issues might be overcome, whether those are related to regulation, control of intellectual property, or systems complexity.

https://ieee-jflex.org/

J-FLEX is a joint publication of IEEE Sensors Council (SC), IEEE Electron Devices Society (EDS), and IEEE Circuits and Systems Society (CASS).

08/09/2026

08/09/2026

Announcing the Call for Papers, a Special Issue on Selected Papers from the IEEE International Conference on Flexible, Printable, Sensors and Systems (FLEPS 2026) in Atlanta, GA USA (July 12-15, 2026).

The scope of this Special Journal Issue includes publication of a selected number of high-quality reviewed FLEPS 2026 presented papers on a broad range of flexible electronics systems.

The authors of selected papers, as notified by the conference technical program commiteee, are invited to submit an extended version of FLEPS 2026 presetned papers for consideration of publication in the proplosed J-FLEX SI.

All such submissions will comply with J-FLEX author-guidelines and be subjected to the standard of IEEE and J-FLEX publication policy.

Guest Editors

Wei Gao
California Institute of Technology, USA

W. Hong Yeo
Georgia Tech, USA

Luigi G. Occhipinti
Loughborough University, UK

Matthew T. Flavin
Georgia Tech, USA

See the full Call for Papers here:
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=11641343
DOI: 10.1109/JFLEX.2026.3714983

08/05/2026

The latest issue of J-FLEX (Volume 5, Issue 8) was released yesterday!

Muhammad Dawood Asghar with Kris Myny, from KU Leuven, present a fully integrated, output capacitorless (FOCL) low-dropout (LDO) voltage regulator design made with 600-nm amorphous indium–gallium–zinc-oxide (IGZO) thin-film transistor (TFT) on-foil technology that offers only n-channel devices. The FOCL-LDO achieves a 330× better figure-of-merit (FoM) compared to previously published IGZO-based LDO designs, demonstrating its potential for fully integrated and power-management solutions in flexible integrated circuits.

Neeraj and Navneet Gupta of Birla Institute of Technology and Science, examines triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG)-based self-powered flexible pressure sensors (SPFPSs) for healthcare monitoring, human–machine interfaces (HMIs), electronic skin, and intelligent robots. A grating structure of triboelectric layers is employed and investigated its impact on the performance of the proposed sensor, having potential for flexible wearable devices in smart healthcare monitoring, physiological signal monitoring, soft robotics, and sports monitoring.

Dolly Kumari and Saurabh Kumar Pandey, from Indian Institute of Technology Patna studied lead-free perovskite photovoltaics (PVs, specifically cesium germanium iodide (CsGeI3) Under fully optimized conditions, the proposed structure attains an efficiency of 25.02%.

Kyle van Oosterhout with Eugenio Cantatore, from Eindhoven University of Technology, study low-frequency noise, which poses challenges for their use in low-noise applications such as biosignal acquisition. This work presents an analytical investigation of these tradeoffs for a commercial a-IGZO TFT technology on a flexible substrate.

About the Front Cover: The cover depicts a fully integrated output capacitor-less (FOCL) low-dropout regulator fabricated in flexible IGZO TFT-on-foil technology. The central schematic highlights the gain-boosted error amplifier, internal compensation network, and n-channel power transistor that enable stable capacitor-free voltage regulation despite the low transconductance of IGZO devices. Insets illustrate the regulator’s response to line transient response, demonstrating excellent regulation and fast settling behavior. To the right, a photograph showcases the fabricated flexible multi-project wafer (MPW) on a stand. The lower section demonstrates the targeted applications including biomedical sensors, analog frontends, microprocessors, and power management.

https://ieee-jflex.org/

J-FLEX is a joint publication of IEEE Sensors Council (SC), IEEE Electron Devices Society (EDS), and IEEE Circuits and Systems Society (CASS).

07/19/2026

The latest issue of J-FLEX (Volume 5, Issue 7) was released Friday! For the first time, J-FLEX has added a Back Cover image too!

Francesco P. Chietera et al., representing a team from Polytechnic of Bari, Italy and University of Salento, Italy, present a novel bendable dielectric resonator antenna (DRA), designed for operating in the 2.4-GHz band for Wi-Fi/IoT applications. The key contribution lies in achieving mechanical adaptability through structural segmentation of the dielectric resonator, rather than employing intrinsically flexible dielectric materials, an approach not previously explored for DRAs.

Kimmo Keränen et al. led a team from VTT Sensing Solutions in Oulu, Finland, introduces sustainable sensor solution of tire pressure monitoring system (TPMS). Solution utilizes thin and flexible plastic substrate patterned by screen printing. In the final step of testing, sensors are integrated on the tires and subsequently installed on a passenger car. In testing, the car is operated at speeds ranging from 30 to 120 km/h on both city streets and highways.

Smrutilekha Samanta et al., with Pydi Ganga M. Bahubalindruni, reports present a novel gain-boosted cross-coupled differential amplifier using only n-type amorphous indium–gallium–zinc-oxide (a-IGZO) thin-film transistor (TFT) technology. The proposed single-stage amplifier design exploits a cross-coupled regulated cascode topology with an auxiliary amplifier and capacitive bootstrapping load to improve the gain. The circuit has shown a gain–bandwidth product (GBWP) of 345 kHz, a figure of merit (FOM) of 1.86 MHz/mW, and a noise efficiency factor (NEF) of 27.48. The performance of the amplifier is validated with the electromyography (EMG) signals, using 3M gel-based electrodes.

Mamta Devi et al. from IIT Mandi, India, broaden laser-induced carbonization capabilities to pattern nitrogen–carbon (N–C) materials such as graphitic carbon nitride (g-CN), and report on a hybrid N–C/porous carbon material carefully designed for quasi-solid-state microsupercapacitor device applications.

About the Front Cover: The image was generated using “gemini-3-pro-image” (aka Gemini) from Google. Credit Brian Chirio.
About the Back Cover: This cover artwork illustrates the design and fabrication workflow that enabled the transformation of a rigid Dielectric Resonator Antenna (DRA) into a flexible one, achieved through 3D-printing and unconventional design choices. Credit: Created by the authors using original prototype photographs, 3D images, and AI-driven graphic editing tools.

https://ieee-jflex.org/

J-FLEX is a joint publication of IEEE Sensors Council (SC), IEEE Electron Devices Society (EDS), and IEEE Circuits and Systems Society (CASS).

07/04/2026

The latest issue of J-FLEX (Volume 5, Issue 6), a Special Issue, on Special Issue on the Social Impact of the Internet of Medical Things: From Body Wearables to Brain Implants was released yesterday!

As the demand for the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT), wearable health monitoring, and neural interface continues to grow, there is an increasing need not only for flexible form factors but also for system-level design, energy-efficient operation, and artificial intelligence integration. Meeting these requirements calls for coordinated progress across the entire stack, from materials and devices to circuits, algorithms, and packaging. The papers in this Special Issue present several innovations that address the inherent technical bottlenecks of flexible electronics, from body wearables to brain implants, while engaging with these broader social implications.

These innovations span five complementary levels of development. At the device level, Mehrolia et al. perform a comprehensive stability analysis of a fully transparent, low-power amorphous indium–gallium–zinc–oxide (a-IGZO) thin-film transistor (TFT) for flexible backplanes. At the packaging and integration level, Bai et al. introduce a high-density mini-pedestal connector for soft neural interfaces. At the wearable system level, Xing et al. demonstrate a skin-conformal multi-channel platform for ambulatory electrogastrography and electrocardiography. At the algorithmic level, Ding et al. propose an explainable foundation model for electroencephalography (EEG) decoding under real-world montage variability. Finally, at the therapeutic application level, Fan et al. review flexible wearable technologies for drug delivery. Together, these five papers contribute to the advancement of socially and clinically aware IoMT systems.

This Special Issue also reflects a unique collaboration among J-FLEX, the IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology (SSIT), and IEEE Brain. It was initially conceived as a joint issue with IEEE Technology and Society Magazine (TSM), broadening the discussion to the social and ethical implications of IoMT and neurotechnology, including adoption, implementation, and inequities linked to socioeconomic access, insurance coverage, and local technology infrastructure. We are pleased that related scholarship appears across the broader IEEE ecosystem, including companion opinion, commentary, and peer-reviewed articles in TSM and IEEE Spectrum articles examining human-centered uses of emerging medical technologies and barriers to access.

About the Cover: A flexible wireless electronic device engineered for high-fidelity, simultaneous wearable electrogastrography (EGG) and electrocardiogram (ECG) monitoring

https://ieee-jflex.org/

J-FLEX is a joint publication of IEEE Sensors Council (SC), IEEE Electron Devices Society (EDS), and IEEE Circuits and Systems Society (CASS).

05/12/2026

The latest issue of J-FLEX (Volume 5, Issue 5) was released yesterday!

Saeid Alamdar et al., representing a team from Irvine, CA, including Soheil Saadat, present an ultrathin, dual-band, dual-polarized antenna with improved isolation between the two polarizations, designed on a 248-μm thick flexible printed circuit (FPC) board. Maintaining high isolation between orthogonal polarizations across two-frequency bands is particularly challenging due to strong coupling through the patch structure and limited substrate thickness. An asymmetric dual-polarized patch antenna employing a partial differential feeding technique is proposed, in which only one port is differentially fed using a wideband coupled-line phase shifter integrated with a T-junction. This configuration effectively suppresses coupling and enhances isolation, achieving measured isolation better than −25 dB.

Fawzi Bouakkaz et al. led a team from France and Italy, including Riccardo Sargeni, Sylvie Lepilliet, Gianluca Fiori and Henri Happy, explore the use of a noncommercial inkjet printer prototype to fabricate high-frequency devices with microscale precision, achieving high-resolution gaps, uniform spacing as small as 9 μm, conductor widths of 50 μm, and a filter that operates at frequencies up to 50 GHz. The chosen substrate is paper as a sustainable, environmentally friendly, and flexible platform that offers adaptability for RF applications in dynamic environments. The printed CPWs demonstrate attenuation of 0.5 dB/mm at 10 GHz and 1.1 dB/mm at 50 GHz.

Smrutilekha Samanta et al., with Pydi Ganga M. Bahubalindruni, reports present a novel gain-boosted cross-coupled differential amplifier using only n-type amorphous indium–gallium–zinc-oxide (a-IGZO) thin-film transistor (TFT) technology. The proposed single-stage amplifier design exploits a cross-coupled regulated cascode topology with an auxiliary amplifier and capacitive bootstrapping load to improve the gain. The circuit has shown a gain–bandwidth product (GBWP) of 345 kHz, a figure of merit (FOM) of 1.86 MHz/mW, and a noise efficiency factor (NEF) of 27.48. The performance of the amplifier is validated with the electromyography (EMG) signals, using 3M gel-based electrodes.

Tejal Shinde et al. a team from TU Delft and India designed an automated paper strip reader (APSR) built on a Raspberry Pi 4B platform. The device integrates a closed chamber with uniform LED illumination, an USB camera, and Python-based image processing algorithms to quantify 15 water quality parameters, including pH, nitrate, chloride, and selected heavy metals. This cost-effective automated system provides a robust solution for reliable POC testing in low-resource environments, aligning with the World Health Organization (WHO) ASSURED criteria for diagnostic devices.

About the Cover: This cover illustrates the development of an ultra-thin flexible printed circuit (FPC) antenna for wearable electronics. The FPC platform is made of low-loss polyimide (LLPI) dielectric layers, copper conductors, and adhesive layers with the same dielectric constant. The antenna structure uses differential feeding, enabling a dual-band, dual-polarized antenna implementation on a thin flexible substrate. The antenna prototype is fabricated and tested, and it maintains its performance under conformal bending conditions. The proposed antenna is intended for integration on different parts of the body for wearable sensing and wireless communication applications, including vital-sign monitoring. This work demonstrates how thin and flexible antenna technology can be designed to enable lightweight, low-profile, and conformal electronic systems for wearable devices.

https://ieee-jflex.org/

J-FLEX is a joint publication of IEEE Sensors Council (SC), IEEE Electron Devices Society (EDS), and IEEE Circuits and Systems Society (CASS).

05/04/2026

May the 4th be with you!

04/24/2026

The latest issue of J-FLEX (Volume 5, Issue 4), a Special Issue, was released today!

This issue of IEEE Journal on Flexible Electronics is a cross-society Special Issue featuring six papers. Brief versions of these works were previously presented at the 2025 IEEE International Flexible Electronics Technology Conference (IFETC) and the 2025 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS), collocated on The University of British Columbia campus in Vancouver, BC, Canada (August 5–9, 2025).

As the demand for wearable health monitoring devices, electronic skin, and human–machine interfaces continues to grow, there is an increasing need for flexible form factors and for localized computational capabilities—giving rise to the era of “wearable intelligence.” The papers in this Special Issue present several innovations that address the inherent performance bottlenecks of flexible electronics for wearable intelligence applications, such as conformable health monitoring devices, smart electronic skins, and intelligent human–machine interfaces

About the Cover: Arial skyline of Vancouver. Photo by: iStock.com/muddymari

https://ieee-jflex.org/

J-FLEX is a joint publication of IEEE Sensors Council (SC), IEEE Electron Devices Society (EDS), and IEEE Circuits and Systems Society (CASS).