Abstract
Soft, flexible and stretchable electronics will impact and advance diverse fields including wearables, robotics, and biocompatible implantable devices. Many current examples of flexible and stretchable electronics are one-off prototypes, whereas future implementation will require mass production. Researchers propose and demonstrate an additive manufacturing process that produces all-printed flexible and stretchable electronics comprised of soft silicone elastomers and liquid metal. They show that this fully automated approach can be used to create complex conductive geometries on a single printing platform, therefore increasing process scalability and repeatability.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 1604965 |
| Journal | Advanced Materials |
| Volume | 29 |
| Issue number | 19 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 17 May 2017 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The authors thank Jianyi Du for his help in developing and updating the 3D stage software, Edward White and Michelle Yuen for their help in setting up the spray printing system, and Jennifer Case for helping with the interface connection. This work was supported by an Early Career Faculty grant from NASA's Space Technology Research Grants Program (NNX14AO52G). The sensor testing portion of this work was supported by a NASA STTR Phase 1 contract (NNX16CA54P).
Keywords
- additive manufacturing
- flexible electronics
- liquid metal
- printed electronics
- stretchable electronics
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Materials Science
- Mechanics of Materials
- Mechanical Engineering
