Electrically conductive silicone nano-composites for stretchable RF devices

Agar, Joshua C.; Durden, Jessica; Staiculescu, D.; Zhang, R.; Gebara, E.; Wong, Ching‐Ping

doi:10.1109/mwsym.2011.5972952

Cited by 8 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 10 publications

(10 reference statements)

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“…Figure b shows that the insertion loss increased for longer transmission lines; however, the longest line (8 turns) exhibited an insertion loss of only −3.46 dB at 40 GHz, which was the lowest compared with those of other demonstrated stretchable RF transmission lines. A comparison between this work and other previously reported stretchable transmission lines is shown in Table S1. − As shown in Figure c, the return loss characteristics followed a similar trend up to 10 GHz; however, beyond that range, the loss characteristics resonated without a trend, owing to the impedance mismatch. Figure d shows the electrical resistances of the two conductor layers (signal and ground) for different numbers of serpentine turns.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 61%

Design and Fabrication of Stretchable Microwave Transmission Lines Based on a Quasi-Microstrip Structure

Lee,

Kim,

Zhang

et al. 2024

ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces

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Radio frequency (RF) electronics are vital components of stretchable electronics that require wireless capabilities, ranging from skin-interfaced wearable systems to implantable devices to soft robotics. One of the key challenges in stretchable electronics is achieving near-lossless transmission line technology that can carry high-frequency electrical signals between various RF components. Almost all existing stretchable interconnection strategies only demonstrate direct current or low-frequency electrical properties, limiting their use in high frequencies, especially in the MHz to GHz range. Here, we describe the design and fabrication of a simple stretchable RF transmission line strategy that integrates a quasimicrostrip structure into a stretchable serpentine microscale interconnection. We show the effects of quasi-microstrip structural dimensions on the RF performance based on detailed quantitative analysis and experimentally demonstrate the optimized device capable of carrying RF signals with frequencies of up to 40 GHz with near-lossless characteristics. To show the potential application of our transmission line in stretchable microwave electronics, we designed a single-stage power amplifier system with a gain of 9.8 dB at 9 GHz that fully utilizes our quasi-microstrip transmission line technology.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 61%

Design and Fabrication of Stretchable Microwave Transmission Lines Based on a Quasi-Microstrip Structure

Lee,

Kim,

Zhang

et al. 2024

ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces

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“…The first utilizes conventional rigid materials, but employs elegantly designed wavy or arc‐shaped structures that are capable of accommodating applied strains of 100% or more . The second approach is to maintain the conventional circuit layout, but embed stretchable or flowable conductive materials, such as conductive polymers, conductive polymer composites, and liquid metal alloys as stretchable conduction lines. For antennas, this second approach is usually preferred because of its relative simplicity in circuit design and fabrication.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rational Design of a Printable, Highly Conductive Silicone‐based Electrically Conductive Adhesive for Stretchable Radio‐Frequency Antennas

et al. 2014

Adv Funct Materials

115

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wileyonlinelibrary.comfl exible nature, impossible within the confi nes of rigid and planar substrates. Stretchable RF electronics not only enable applications in which circuits can be wrapped conformally around complex curvilinear shapes or biological tissues, such as in body-worn wireless sensor nodes, [ 1,2 ] and wearable radio frequency identifi cation (RFID) tags, [ 3 ] but also allow facile tuning of the resonant frequency by mechanical deformation. [ 4,5 ] However, the fi eld of stretchable RF electronics is still in its infancy, and like other emerging electronic technologies, new materials and processing methods are the two driving forces for their ever-improving development and performance.There are currently two general approaches to the fabrication of stretchable electronics. The fi rst utilizes conventional rigid materials, but employs elegantly designed wavy or arc-shaped structures that are capable of accommodating applied strains of 100% or more. [ 2,6,7 ] The second approach is to maintain the conventional circuit layout, but embed stretchable or fl owable conductive materials, such as conductive polymers, [ 8,9 ] conductive polymer composites, [ 10 ] and liquid metal alloys [ 4,11 ] as stretchable conduction lines. For antennas, this second approach is usually preferred because of its relative simplicity in circuit design and fabrication. However, this approach imposes stringent requirements for the conductive materials, including 1) high electrical conductivity to achieve high-effi ciency for the RF devices; [ 9 ] and 2) high elasticity to provide a tunable resonant frequency, [ 4 ] and 3) maintaining a similar electrical conductivity under applied strain. Conductive polymers and carbon-based conductive composites have conductivities at least three orders of magnitude lower than those of metals, leading to an inferior electrical effi ciency values; [ 9 ] and liquid metal alloys usually present the fundamental problems of a high freezing temperature (limiting their usage in cold weather), thermal expansion coeffi cient mismatch with dielectric substrates, and a tendency towards leakage. [ 4 ] Here we report the use of stretchable silicone-based electrically conductive adhesives (silo-ECAs) as conductor and pure silicone elastomers as substrate for the fabrication of stretchable antennas. Silicone rubbers feature a unique combination of high elasticity, biocompatibility, [ 12 ] patternability, [ 13 ] and low Stretchable radio-frequency electronics are gaining popularity as a result of the increased functionality they gain through their fl exible nature, impossible within the confi nes of rigid and planar substrates. One approach to fabricating stretchable antennas is to embed stretchable or fl owable conductive materials, such as conductive polymers, conductive polymer composites, and liquid metal alloys as stretchable conduction lines. However, these conductive materials face many challenges, such as low electrical conductivity under mechanical deformation and delamination from substrates. I...

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“…Conductive nanocomposites have been demonstrated to exhibit electrical properties compared to conventional metals and inorganic semiconductors while maintaining typical polymeric properties of flexibility, easy processing and synthesis [38,65]. Although organic conductors prove to be the right candidates for certain applications such as electrodes in large area flexible electronics, the non-compressibility hinders their use for measurement of contact related events [20,39,48,66,67]. Therefore, conductive fillers in variety of nanostructures are incorporated in a polymeric elastomer in specific ratios to tune the electrical properties and desired compressibility [39,45,47,68,69].…”

Section: Conductive Nanocomposites: Synthesis and Processingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The elastic nature of PDMS provides the opportunity to be slightly deformed after compressing or stretching the bulk layer within the elastic limits of PDMS. The resistance of the bulk composite which vary upon application of force can effectively be exploited to measure the force or other contact events [67,76,77,92]. The electrical conductance is often modeled by taking into account the filler resistance (R f ) and the contact resistance (R C ), the contact resistance in turn is contributed by the constriction resistance (R CR ) and tunneling resistance (R T ).…”

Section: Percolation Mechanismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recent advances of conductive nanocomposites in printed and flexible electronics

Khan

Lorenzelli

2017

Smart Mater. Struct.

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Conductive nanocomposites have emerged as significant smart engineered materials for realizing flexible electronics on diverse substrates in recent years. Conductive nanocomposites are comprised of conductive fillers mixed with polymeric elastomer (e.g. polydimethylsiloxane). The possibility to tune electrical as well as mechanical properties of nanocomposites makes them suitable for a wide spectrum of applications including sensors and electronics on non-planar and stretchable surfaces. A number of conductive nanofillers and manufacturing technologies have been developed to meet the diverse requirements of various applications. Considering the substantial contribution of conductive nanocomposites, it is opportune time to review the potentials of various nanofillers, their synthesis, processing methodologies and challenges associated to them. This paper reviews conductive nanocomposites, especially in context with their use in the development of electronic components and the sensors exploiting the piezoresistive behavior. The paper is structured around the nanocomposites related studies aiming to develop various building blocks of flexible electronic skin systems such as pressure, touch, strain and temperature sensors as well as stretchable interconnects. Besides this, the use of nanocomposites in other stimulating industrial and biomedical applications has also been explored briefly.

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Electrically conductive silicone nano-composites for stretchable RF devices

Cited by 8 publications

References 10 publications

Design and Fabrication of Stretchable Microwave Transmission Lines Based on a Quasi-Microstrip Structure

Design and Fabrication of Stretchable Microwave Transmission Lines Based on a Quasi-Microstrip Structure

Rational Design of a Printable, Highly Conductive Silicone‐based Electrically Conductive Adhesive for Stretchable Radio‐Frequency Antennas

Recent advances of conductive nanocomposites in printed and flexible electronics

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