Bio-hydrogelated structured sensors of high-performances for degradable bioelectronics

• Proteinic hydrogelation enables biocompatible and biodegradable implantable bioelectronics. • Interlocking sawtooth structure amplifies pressure-to-strain conversion for high sensitivity. • Molecular self-assembly combining with mechanical design allows development of practical bio-devices. Compared with state-of-the-art polymeric counterparts, proteinic self-assemblies may bridge the gap between device performances and biocompatibility/biodegradability requirement, showing promising potentials in implantable bioelectronic scenarios. Nevertheless, stochastic behaviors due to lack of structural design severely restrict the reliability of proteinic sensors, along with hindering their miniaturization for in vivo applications. Herein, proteinic hydrogelation-based structured implantable sensors of intrinsic biodegradability with enhanced stability and sensing behaviours are engineered. Upon enzymatic crosslinking, the bio-hydrogels can boost mechanical elasticity and lead to minimal swelling side-effects for bioelectronics. Followingly, an interlocking sawtooth structure is designed to convert external loading into tensile strain, based on which a miniaturized implantable tactile sensor of high-performances is developed, showing an ultrahigh sensitivity integrated with fast dynamic responses, high resolutions towards varied amplitudes, frequencies and types, as well as reliable repeatability and intrinsic biodegradability. Our findings exemplify the feasibility of developing bio-hydrogelated structured sensors as biodegradable bioelectronics