Conductive
hydrogels are promising materials for soft electronic
devices. To satisfy the diverse requirement of bioelectronic devices,
especially those for human–machine interfaces, hydrogels are
required to be transparent, conductive, highly stretchable, and skin-adhesive.
However, fabrication of a conductive-polymer-incorporated hydrogel
with high performance is a challenge because of the hydrophobic nature
of conductive polymers making processing difficult. Here, we report
a transparent, conductive, stretchable, and self-adhesive hydrogel
by in situ formation of polydopamine (PDA)-doped polypyrrole (PPy)
nanofibrils in the polymer network. The in situ formed nanofibrils
with good hydrophilicity were well-integrated with the hydrophilic
polymer phase and interwoven into a nanomesh, which created a complete
conductive path and allowed visible light to pass through for transparency.
Catechol groups from the PDA–PPy nanofibrils imparted the hydrogel
with self-adhesiveness. Reinforcement by the nanofibrils made the
hydrogel tough and stretchable. The proposed simple and smart strategy
of in situ formation of conductive nanofillers opens a new route to
incorporate hydrophobic and undissolvable conductive polymers into
hydrogels. The fabricated multifunctional hydrogel shows promise in
a range of applications, such as transparent electronic skins, wound
dressings, and bioelectrodes for see-through body-adhered signal detection.