Liquid Metals for Reconfigurable Bioelectronics

Adv Mater. 2026 Mar 20:e21174. doi: 10.1002/adma.202521174. Online ahead of print.

Abstract

Future bioelectronic technologies must evolve beyond passive softness toward active reconfigurability, enabling intelligent interfaces that adapt to dynamic physiological and environmental changes. However, the inherently static architectures of most current devices hinder such adaptive reconfiguration or performance tuning, leading to a functional mismatch between dynamic biological systems and static electronic architectures. To bridge this gap, reconfigurable bioelectronics have emerged as a transformative paradigm capable of dynamically modulating their physical form and function in response to external or physiological stimuli. Liquid metals (LMs)-combining deformability, tunable stiffness, high electrical/thermal conductivity, multi-stimuli responsiveness, and biocompatibility-offer a unique material platform for realizing intrinsic reconfigurability without structural complexity. By leveraging their material-level reconfigurability, LM-based bioelectronics achieve robust performance, versatile functionality, and dynamic biointegration, enabling multifunctional diagnostic, therapeutic, and interactive systems. This review provides a comprehensive overview of LM-based reconfigurable bioelectronics, encompassing fundamental material properties, fabrication and design strategies, and major reconfiguration mechanisms. It further highlights emerging biomedical applications, ranging from implantable and wearable systems to soft robotics and haptic interfaces, and discusses key challenges and future directions for advancing LM-based bioelectronics toward clinically viable, intelligent, and multifunctional platforms.

Keywords: adaptability; bioelectronics; liquid metals; reconfigurable; stimuli‐responsive.

Publication types

  • Review