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Published on: January 26, 2016
Maskless Fabrication of Highly Conductive and Ultrastretchable Liquid Metal Features through Selective Laser
Gaohua Hu1, Hangyu Zhu1, Haorun Guo2
1College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, State Key Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry for Life Science, and Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Artificial Functional Materials, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210046, China.
Abstract:
In the rising field of stretchable electronics, liquid metals are ideal candidate conductors with metallic conductivity and intrinsic deformability. The complex patterning methods of liquid metal features have limited their widespread applications. In this study, we report a maskless fabrication approach for the facile and scalable patterning of liquid metal conductors on an elastomer substrate. Laser-activated patterns are employed as versatile templates to define arbitrary liquid metal patterns. The as-prepared liquid metal features show an excellent conductivity of 3.72 × 104 S/cm, a high resolution of 70 μm, ultrahigh stretchability of up to 1000% strain, and electromechanical durability. The practical suitability of liquid metal conductors is demonstrated by fabricating a stretchable light-emitting diode (LED) matrix and a smart sensing glove. The maskless fabrication technique introduced here allows versatile patterning of liquid metal conductors with affordable costs, which may stimulate a broad range of applications in stretchable electronic devices and systems.
