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Updated: Jan 27, 2026

Reactive Vapor Deposition of Conjugated Polymer Films on Arbitrary Substrates
Published on: January 17, 2018
Vapor-printed polymer electrodes for long-term, on-demand health monitoring
Jae Joon Kim1, Linden K Allison1, Trisha L Andrew1
1Departments of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA 01003, USA.
Abstract:
We vapor print conformal conjugated polymer electrodes directly onto living plants and use these electrodes to probe the health of actively growing specimens using bioimpedance spectroscopy. Vapor-printed polymer electrodes, unlike their adhesive thin-film counterparts, do not delaminate from microtextured living surfaces as the organism matures and do not observably attenuate the natural growth pattern and self-sustenance of the plants investigated here. On-demand, noninvasive bioimpedance spectroscopy performed with long-lasting vapor-printed polymer electrodes can reliably detect deep tissue damage caused by dehydration and ultraviolet A exposure throughout the life cycle of a plant.
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