Designable Electrical/Thermal Coordinated Dual‐Regulation Based on Liquid Metal Shape Memory Polymer Foam for Smart Switch

Abstract

Abstract Electronic components with tunable resistance, especially with synergistic regulation of thermal conductivity, play important roles in the fields of electronics, smart switch, soft robots, and so on. However, it is still a challenge to get the material with various resistance and thermal conductivity stably without lasting external force. Herein, a liquid metal shape memory polymer foam (LM‐SMF) is developed by loading electrically and thermally conductive liquid metal (LM) on deformable foam skeleton. Based on thermal response shape memory effect, the foam skeleton can be reversibly pressed, the process of which enables LM to transfer between connected and disconnected states. As a result, obtained LM‐SMF shows that the resistance stably changes from 0.8 Ω (conductor) to 200 MΩ (insulator), and the thermal conductivity difference is up to 4.71 times (0.108 to 0.509 W m−1 K−1), which indicates that LM‐SMF can achieve the electrical and thermal dual‐regulation. Moreover, LM‐SMF can be used as a designable self‐feedback/‐warning integrated smart switch or tunable infrared stealth switch. This work proposes a novel strategy to get the material with electrical–thermal coordinated dual‐regulation, which is possibly applied in intelligent heating system with real‐time monitoring function, electrothermal sensor in the future.

Keywords

• controllable electrical/thermal conductivity
• liquid metal
• shape memory foam
• smart switch