With high conductivity and stretchable for large cross-sections, liquid metals such as galinstan are promising for creating stretchable devices and interconnects. Creating high resolution features in parallel is challenging, with most techniques limited to a hundred micrometers or more. In this work, multilevel electroplated stencils are investigated for printing liquid metals, with galinstan features as small as ten micrometers printed on soft elastomers, a factor of 10 reduction over past liquid metal stencil printing. Capacitors and resistive strain sensors are also demonstrated, showing the potential for creating stretchable conductors and devices.

Liquid metals are ideally suited for creating low resistance traces able to undergo large mechanical strains. In this work, multilayer fluidic channels in soft silicone are used to create two inductor topologies, a solenoid and a double planar coil, based on the liquid metal galinstan. Electromechanical models were developed for the inductance upon stretching for each inductor, finding that the double planar coil has lower strain sensitivity in each direction than the solenoid. A three turn double planar coil and six turn solenoid, with unstretched inductances of approximately 250 nH and 55 nH respectively, were fabricated and tested using custom tensile and compressive strain testing setups and compared with the analytical model. The double planar coil was found to increase in inductance when stretched in either in-plane axes, with a measured rise of approximately 40% for 100% strain. The solenoid decreased in inductance by 24% for 100% strain along the core direction, and increased by 50% for the same strain along the core width.

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The use of gold nanoparticles coated with an organic monolayer of thiol for application in chemiresistive sensors was initiated in the late 1990s; since then, such types of sensors have been widely pursued due to their high sensitivities and reversible responses to volatile organic compounds (VOCs). However, a major issue for chemical sensors based on thiol-capped gold nanoparticles is their poor long-term stability as a result of slow degradation of the monothiol-to-gold bonds. We have devised a strategy to overcome this limitation by synthesizing a more robust system using Au nanoparticles capped by trithiol ligands. Compared to its monothiol counterpart, the new system is significantly more stable and also shows improved sensitivity towards different types of polar or non-polar VOCs. Thus, the trithiol-Au nanosensor shows great promise for use in real world applications.