WASHINGTON — Researchers have developed a simple and eco-friendly way to use a laser to turn natural leather into flexible and wearable energy devices. The new approach could lay the groundwork for more sustainable wearable electronics.
“Using a laser, we directly write conductive patterns onto vegetable tanned leather to create microsupercapacitors that can store energy and help smooth electrical signals so that wearable electronics run more reliably,” said the research team leader Dong-Dong Han from Jilin University in China. “Unlike conventional devices that rely on synthetic materials and complex, chemical-heavy processes, our approach uses a natural, skin-friendly material and a one-step fabrication method.”
In the Optica Publishing Group journal Optics Letters , the researchers demonstrate the new technique by creating microsupercapacitors on leather in various patterns, including a tiger, dragon and rabbit.
“The microsupercapacitors are well-suited for flexible and comfortable wearable electronics because they are built on soft materials and can be shaped freely and integrated directly into products,” said Han. “For example, a smartwatch band could store and regulate power instead of relying on a rigid battery, making the device thinner and more comfortable. The technology could also be used in skin-mounted sensors, smart clothing or other everyday accessories that power small electronics.”
Sustainable wearable electronics
The work in this paper grew out of a larger research effort focused on the precision laser fabrication of microdevices on complex surfaces. The researchers realized that the laser technique they were experimenting with could also be applied to everyday materials like leather to address a different challenge: the environmental impact of wearable electronics.
They developed a process that starts with a piece of vegetable-tanned leather, a natural material processed using plant-based extracts and uses a CO 2 laser to directly write conductive patterns onto its surface. The laser converts the leather surface into conductive carbon in a single step. By tuning the laser parameters, the researchers can control the carbon properties without any complex fabrication steps, enabling a straightforward and scalable path to functional devices.
The conductive patterns serve as electrodes that allow positive and negative ions to gather on the electrode surfaces during charging and then release quickly when needed, allowing the device to store energy and smooth out electrical signals to keep electronics running steadily.
“Our method replaces plastic substrates with a renewable material, simplifies fabrication into a single laser step without chemicals or cleanroom processes, and combines energy storage with signal filtering in one device,” said Han. “While some approaches may achieve higher performance in specific metrics, they often come with greater complexity or environmental cost.”
Durable and practical microsupercapacitors
Tests of the new laser-based method showed that the laser-treated surface becomes conductive and porous, enabling efficient energy storage. The researchers also showed that the conductive patterns maintained stable performance over many charge-discharge cycles and worked well at the standard 60 Hz frequency used in everyday electronics.
To demonstrate practical applications, they used the microsupercapacitors to power LEDs and an electronic watch. They also showed that the microsupercapacitors could be fabricated in customized shapes without losing functionality.
The researchers are now working on refining the microsupercapacitors to improve performance, durability and filtering, aiming for behavior closer to an ideal capacitor at everyday frequencies. They are also fine-tuning the laser process and materials to ensure long-term stability under conditions like sweat, humidity and repeated bending while also working toward integrating the devices into wearable systems such as self-powered health-monitoring patches.
Paper : H. Zhou, T.-T. Zhang, Q. Wang, X.-L. Li, Y.-L. Zhang, D.-D. Han, “Sustainable, wearable planar MSCs for AC line filters and energy storage,” Opt. Lett. , 51, 2132-2135 (2025).
DOI: 10.1364/OL.587978
About Optics Letters
Optics Letters offers rapid dissemination of new results in all areas of optical science with short, original, peer-reviewed communications. Optics Letters accepts papers that are noteworthy to a substantial part of the optics community. Published by Optica Publishing Group and led by Editor-in-Chief Carsten Rockstuhl, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany. For more information, visit Optics Letters .
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Optica Publishing Group is a division of the society, Optica , Advancing Optics and Photonics Worldwide. It publishes the largest collection of peer-reviewed and most-cited content in optics and photonics, including 19 prestigious journals, the society’s flagship member magazine, and papers and videos from over 1200 conferences. With over 505,000 journal articles, conference papers and videos to search, discover and access, its publications portfolio represents the full range of research in the field from around the globe.
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Optics Letters
Sustainable, wearable planar MSCs for AC line filters and energy storage
8-Apr-2026