Mechanically Flexible Conductors for Stretchable and Wearable E‐Skin and E‐Textile Devices

Abstract

Considerable progress in materials development and device integration for mechanically bendable and stretchable optoelectronics will broaden the application of “Internet‐of‐Things” concepts to a myriad of new applications. When addressing the needs associated with the human body, such as the detection of mechanical functions, monitoring of health parameters, and integration with human tissues, optoelectronic devices, interconnects/circuits enabling their functions, and the core passive components from which the whole system is built must sustain different degrees of mechanical stresses. Herein, the basic characteristics and performance of several of these devices are reported, particularly focusing on the conducting element constituting them. Among these devices, strain sensors of different types, energy storage elements, and power/energy storage and generators are included. Specifically, the advances during the past 3 years are reported, wherein mechanically flexible conducting elements are fabricated from (0D, 1D, and 2D) conducting nanomaterials from metals (e.g., Au nanoparticles, Ag flakes, Cu nanowires), carbon nanotubes/nanofibers, 2D conductors (e.g., graphene, MoS2), metal oxides (e.g., Zn nanorods), and conducting polymers (e.g., poly(3,4‐ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(4‐styrene sulfonate), polyaniline) in combination with passive fibrotic and elastomeric materials enabling, after integration, the so‐called electronic skins and electronic textiles.

Highly Stretchable and Compressible Carbon Nanofiber–Polymer Hydrogel Strain Sensor for Human Motion Detection

“…It plays increasingly important role in environmental monitoring, medical diagnosis, soft robot, military and other fields. [1][2][3][4][5][6] Selecting or synthesizing flexible materials is the key to fabricate flexible devices and the necessary condition to realize wearable functions. Therefore, some organic www.advancedsciencenews.com www.mme-journal.de hydrogel in simulating human skin was more practical and recyclable.…”

Protocol to assess the quality of transmission lines within smart textile structures

“…Next level of achievement is based on adding the sensors, actuators, antennas, and conductor or semiconductor fibers on wearable textile surfaces and to get the wearable motherboard specially designed targeting the end usage [19][20][21][22]. There are various ongoing researches, which develop very comfortable e-textiles for specific end-users such as pilots, astronauts, disabled people by implementing highly stretchable, flexible and soft wearable sensors [4,6,[23][24][25][26][27].…”

Simultaneous Sensing of Touch and Pressure by Using Highly Elastic e-Fabrics

“…There have been many studies on the design and fabrication of e-skins with functionalities and mechanical properties comparable to natural skin in soft robotics [3][4][5][6][7], human physiological monitoring, health care [8][9][10][11], and human-machine interfaces [12][13][14][15][16]. Most of the mechanisms of skin-like electronics are based on a relationship between pressure and electrical properties such as the resistance [17,18] and capacitance [19][20][21][22] of constituent conductive materials. To date, capacitive soft sensors have dominated research in this field due to good performance and better stability than resistive soft sensors.…”