APL Materials (Mar 2019)

Highly conductive 3D metal-rubber composites for stretchable electronic applications

  • Yue Zhao,
  • Weidong Yang,
  • Yu Jun Tan,
  • Si Li,
  • Xianting Zeng,
  • Zhuangjian Liu,
  • Benjamin C.-K. Tee

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5083942
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 7, no. 3
pp. 031508 – 031508-7

Abstract

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Stretchable conductors are critical building blocks for enabling new forms of wearable and curvilinear electronics. In this paper, we introduce a new method using the interfacial design to enable stretchable conductors with ultra-high conductivity and robustness to strain using three-dimensional helical copper micro-interconnects embedded in an elastic rubber substrate (eHelix-Cu). We studied the interfacial mechanics of the metal-elastomer to achieve highly reversible conductivities with strains. The stretchable eHelix-Cu interconnect has an ultra-high conductivity (∼105 S cm−1) that remains almost invariant when stretched to 170%, which is significantly higher than in other approaches using nanomaterials. The stretchable conductors can withstand strains of 100% for thousands of cycles, demonstrating remarkable durability for exciting potential wearable electronic applications.