Transient technology promises a generation of renovation.
Scientists exploit materials,
devices, and systems that are capable of completely dissolving or selectively disintegrating under triggerable manners with controlled rates at prescribed times. Envisioned applications span from military uses, consumer optoelectronics, and even to biomedical implants. In modern warfare, to come without a shadow and leave without a trace, suicidal military hardware (e.g., cameras, sensors, antennas, chips, robots, and other spy gears) can be strategically air-dropped or hiddenly embedded throughout hostile environments for remote monitoring, wireless communication, and distributed networks without no one the wiser, which provides sufficient condition for preemptive tactics and fatal strikes. To track or recycle every gadget that leaves or crashes in a war zone is nearly impossible creating enticing opportunities for adversaries to collect, study, reverse-engineer, and even copy. Thus, people expect next-generation military hardware or information-sensitive device can literally cease to exist as soon as mission completes to prevent the critical loss of intellectual properties and technological advantages. Consumer optoelectronics, including portable electronics (e.g., smartphones, tablets, and laptops) and environmental sensors (e.g., photo/ gas/thermal/pressure detectors) together with their network for Internet of Things (IoT), have greatly changed human lifestyle and promoted the life quality. However, rapid technological advances have led to a significant decrease in the lifetime of inorganic semiconductor based consumer electronics approaching an average of several months to few years. These non-renewable, non-degradable, and potentially toxic wastes have accompanied crucial impacts on the environmental protection. The hope of sustainable society goes on transient modules. Imaging that broken consumer products, in the near future, could decompose just in flowerpots for days rather than stay in landfills for eons i.e. discarded optoelectronics can become compost rather than trash. Furthermore, the growing requirements of healthcare quality have sparked an emerging research trend in transient biomedical components. Recent advances can be classified into two types: One is designed for long-term uses to avoid reiterative surgeries for therapeutic device replacement (e.g., brain electrical stimulators, cardiac pacemakers, in vivo nanogenerator/battery, and bio-interfaced systems for real time point-of-care diagnostics). Another is utilized for temporary medical tasks, expected to disappear, or resorb, in the body after they provide some useful function (e.g., localized drug delivery matrices for target therapy, injectable electrophysiological sensors, and digestible digital-imaging widgets).