Fully rubbery stretchable electronics, sensors, and smart skins

Abstract

A general strategy to impart mechanical stretchability to stretchable electronics involves engineering materials into special architectures to accommodate or eliminate the mechanical strain in nonstretchable electronic materials while stretched. We introduce an all solution–processed type of electronics and sensors that are rubbery and intrinsically stretchable as an outcome from all the elastomeric materials in percolated composite formats with P3HT-NFs [poly(3-hexylthiophene-2,5- diyl) nanofibrils] and AuNP-AgNW (Au nanoparticles with conformally coated silver nanowires) in PDMS (polydimethylsiloxane). Rubbery sensors, which include strain, pressure, and temperature sensors, show reliable sensing capabilities and are exploited as smart gloves that enable gesture translation and smart skins with temperature sensing capability for robotics. Transistors and their arrays fully based on intrinsically stretchable electronic materials were developed, and they retained electrical performances without substantial loss when subjected to 50% stretching. Fully rubbery integrated electronics and logic gates were developed, and they also functioned reliably upon mechanical stretching. A rubbery active matrix based elastic tactile sensing skin to map physical touch was demonstrated to illustrate one of the applications.