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Printable Liquid Metal Microparticle Ink for Ultrastretchable Electronics.

Yanyan Li¹, Shuxuan Feng¹, Shitai Cao¹

¹College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, State Key Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry for Life Science, National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructure, Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, and Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Artificial Functional Materials, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China.

ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces

|October 27, 2020

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Researchers developed a chemical sintering method to create highly stretchable and conductive liquid metal electronics. This process enables printable conductive features with exceptional conductivity and ultrahigh stretchability for advanced applications.

Area of Science:

Materials Science
Nanotechnology
Electronics Engineering

Background:

Liquid metal in elastomers offers high deformability for stretchable electronics.
Dispersing liquid metal into particles creates printable inks but hinders conductivity recovery.
Surface oxides and ligands on particles prevent coalescence and restoration of metallic properties.

Purpose of the Study:

To develop a facile and scalable method for patterning conductive features using liquid metal.
To overcome the limitations of surface passivation in liquid metal microparticles.
To achieve high conductivity and ultrahigh stretchability in printed liquid metal conductors.

Main Methods:

A chemical sintering process was employed to convert printed liquid metal microparticles into a deformable conductor.

Keywords:

liquid metal printable electronics sintering stretchable conductor stretchable electronics

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The process involved removing surface oxide with acid fume exposure.

Liquid metal microparticles were selectively wetted onto copper nanoplates within the ink formulation.

Main Results:

The chemical sintering process successfully converted liquid metal microparticles into a highly deformable conductor.
Printed conductive features exhibited exceptional conductivity (>10^4 S cm^-1) and ultrahigh stretchability (∼1000% strain).
The method proved facile and scalable for large-area printing.

Conclusions:

The chemical sintering process enables the fabrication of advanced stretchable electronics with remarkable properties.
This technique overcomes previous limitations in achieving conductivity and deformability in printed liquid metal.
Demonstrated applications include ultrastretchable ribbon cables and epidermal heaters.