This could have a significant impact across wearable technologies.

Although today’s wearables are fantastic pieces of engineering, fact is they tend to be bulky and come with tethering related restrictions. So as to bypass this problem, researchers have created thinner and yet more powerful wearables that can be applied directly onto the skin.

Scientists have now surpassed even this level of ingenuity. Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, led by Zhenqiang have developed “the world’s fastest stretchable, wearable integrated circuits,” which could potentially allow hospitals to apply temporary tattoos and thus remove the necessities of clips and wires, altogether.

This new stretchable wearable circuit supports frequencies in the range of 0.3 to 300 gigahertz. It falls in what is set to become the 5G standard.

Whereas this new upcoming 5G would essentially mean greater coverage and speed for smartphones, engineers and scientists have now opened up the technology to wearables wherein the wearer could transmit their vital signals to a doctor without even having to leave the comfort of their homes.

Although the idea isn’t really unique, the ICs which have now been created by the researchers have a significantly smaller footprint than those that have been developed earlier.

Whereas transmission lines measured up to .64 millimeters, the solutions found by the researchers are just .025 millimeters thick.

Significantly, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research has supported this research project, so it wouldn’t be too much to expect future pilots to be fitted with this wearable and its subsequent breakthroughs.