This device overcomes the mechanical limitations inherent in traditional inorganic materials, significantly enhancing their stretchability and durability.
In collaboration with Professor Taeho Park’s team from the Department of Chemical Engineering at POSTECH, the DGIST team has created a stretchable hybrid polymer. This innovation has been applied to electronic devices, allowing them to maintain stable operation even when subjected to deformation or external impacts. The technology is anticipated to find applications in various industries, including displays, healthcare, and wearables. The findings have been published online in ACS Nano.
Maintaining stable electrical functionality in stretchable electronic components, especially when deformed or impacted, poses a significant challenge. However, the DGIST-POSTECH joint research team has addressed this issue by developing a stretchable hybrid polymer and introducing a new strain isolation strategy. This approach effectively integrates stretchable inorganic electronic devices, resulting in a new class of stretchable electronic devices that operate reliably under deformation and external stress.
The research team utilised Interpenetrating Polymer Network (IPN) cross-linking to develop the stretchable hybrid polymer. The IPN is a three-dimensional polymer structure created by physically and chemically cross-linking two or more polymers, preserving the unique characteristics of each polymer while reinforcing them. By inducing physical entanglement between the polymers, the team achieved an excellent mechanical interface, ensuring high stability and performance even under deformation. The hybrid polymer was created using silicone-based polymers with varying elastic moduli, specifically polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and polyurethane (PU).
The team then constructed a substrate using the developed stretchable polymer and combined it with a high-efficiency stretchable electronic component made from inorganic materials to complete the stretchable electronic device. This innovative device is designed to distribute strain that occurs at a single point during stretching or bending, thereby reducing mechanical stress and maintaining high stability. This significantly mitigates the physical damage and performance degradation that are common in existing stretchable electronics.
Professor Kyung-In Jang from the Department of Robotics and Mechatronics Engineering said: "We are pleased to have developed the stretchable electronic device system that maintains the performance of inorganic materials, which are mechanically vulnerable, even under various deformations and physical damages.
"We confirmed the system's stability in applications such as stretchable micro-light emitting devices and heaters through verification, and we will further enhance this research to apply it in various industries such as healthcare and wearables as well as stretchable displays."
