Monolithic integration for self-contained skin electronics

Abstract Skin-mounted electronic systems face unique constraints arising from soft, curved, and continuously deforming biological interfaces, where energy availability is weak, distributed, and time dependent. While advances in stretchable sensors have enabled conformal signal acquisition, power delivery remains the dominant limitation. In self-powered skin electronics, energy delivery cannot be treated as an independent subsystem but must be considered as an architectural component inseparable from sensing. Both ambient energy harvesters and flexible batteries operate under identical constraints of limited power, mechanical deformation, and minimal tolerance for loss. Conventional discrete power architectures amplify inefficiencies through routed interconnects and interfaces, leading to energy dissipation, mechanical instability, and signal degradation. This Research Highlight emphasizes monolithic integration as a unifying architectural principle that minimizes separation between energy delivery and sensing. By suppressing routing and interfaces, monolithic architectures preserve signal fidelity and enable reliable self-powered operation at the skin interface.