Reversible polymer-gel transition for ultra-stretchable chip-integrated circuits through self-soldering and self-coating and self-healing.

ABSTRACT: Integration of solid-state microchips into soft-matter, and stretchable printed electronics has been the biggest challenge against their scalable fabrication. We introduce, Pol-Gel, a simple technique for self-soldering, self-encapsulation, and self-healing, that allows low cost, scalable, and rapid fabrication of hybrid microchip-integrated ultra-stretchable circuits. After digitally printing the circuit, and placing the microchips, we trigger a Polymer-Gel transition in physically cross-linked block copolymers substrate, and silver liquid metal composite ink, by exposing the circuits to the solvent vapor. Once in the gel state, microchips penetrate to the ink and the substrate (Self-Soldering), and the ink penetrates to the substrate (Self-encapsulation). Maximum strain tolerance of ~120

SUBMITTER: Lopes PA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8333313 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature