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).