A healable polymer for stretchable electronics

Abstract

For the first time, researchers have created a stretchy polymer that's got the right electronic properties to play an active role in transistors. What's more, the polymer can heal when damaged. Made by joining together somewhat stiff semiconducting polymer segments with squishy segments, the material could be used in wearable health monitors and displays that can stretch, wrinkle, and heal like skin. The new polymer has an electronic performance on par with amorphous silicon, the material that's used in transistor arrays that control liquid-crystal display pixels. And it maintains that electrical performance even when stretched to double its original size (Nature 2016, DOI: 10.1038/nature20102). There are a few approaches to making stretchable electronics, says Zhenan Bao, a chemical engineer at Stanford University whose group developed the polymer. One way to do it is to glue thin pieces of semiconducting but rigid materials like silicon onto a rubbery material and connect