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Updated: Jan 30, 2026

A Fabrication Method for Highly Stretchable Conductors with Silver Nanowires
Published on: January 21, 2016
Large-Scale Fabrication of Highly Elastic Conductors on a Broad Range of Surfaces
Lixue Tang1,2, Lei Mou1,2, Wei Zhang1,2
1Beijing Engineering Research Center for BioNanotechnology and CAS Key Laboratory for Biomedical Effects of Nanomaterials and Nanosafety, CAS Center for Excellence in Nanoscience , National Center for NanoScience and Technology , No. 11 Zhongguancun Beiyitiao , Beijing 100190 , P. R. China.
Abstract:
Recently, great stretchability progress has been witnessed in elastic electronics. However, such electronics are costly, toxic, or cannot pattern on a broad range of substrates, which limit their large-scale fabrications and applications. Here, to overcome those limitations, an ink comprising liquid metal particles and desirable polymer solutions is developed. The polymer solutions in our ink can be adjusted to print on different surfaces and avoid toxic organic solvents in most cases. The ink can be sintered by a small strain (∼10%) in room temperature. Using our ink, conductors with high stretchability (380000 S/m at a strain of 1000%) can be printed in low consumption (liquid metal consumption 3.27 mg/cm2), in a large area (bestrew the entire surface of a T-shirt), and in high throughputs (∼105 cm2/h). The ink can be printed on a T-shirt to achieve a smart wearable platform that integrates electronics for strain/electrophysiology/electrochemistry detection and temperature monitoring/controlling.
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