Ultraelastic and High‐Conductivity Multiphase Conductor with Universally Autonomous Self‐Healing

Abstract

Next-generation, truly soft, and stretchable electronic circuits with material level self-healing functionality require high-performance solution-processable organic conductors capable of autonomously self-healing without external intervention. A persistent challenge is to achieve required performance level as electrical, mechanical, and self-healing properties optimized in tandem are difficult to attain. Here heterogenous multiphase conductor with cocontinuous morphology and macroscale phase separation for ultrafast universally autonomous self-healing with full recovery of pristine tensile and electrical properties in less than 120 and 900 s, respectively, is reported. The multiphase conductor is insensitive to flaws under stretching and achieves a synergistic combination of conductivity up to ≈1.5 S cm −1 , stress at break ≈4 MPa, toughness up to >81 MJ m −3 , and elastic recovery exceeding 2000% strain. Such properties are difficult to achieve simultaneously with any other type of material so far. The solution-processable multiphase conductor offers a paradigm shift for damage tolerant and environmentally resistant soft electronic components and circuits with material level self-healing.

Soft and Stretchable Humidity‐Insensitive Thermoresistive Temperature Sensor with A Tensile Strain Modulated Sensitivity

“…Preparation of PEDOT:PSS solution: The solution of PEDOT:PSS and with predetermined concentration of DMSO was prepared as previously reported. [76] Aqueous solution of 4.6 g of PH1000 was dispersed with 16 vol.% of DMSO. The solution was stirred at room temperature to remove the excessive water until the weight of the solution was decreased by ≈41%.…”

Application of Multilayered Blend Films as Soft, Stretchable, Self‐Adhesive, and Self‐Healing Absorption‐Dominant EMI Shielding and Microwave Absorber

“…The overall thickness of the structure was controlled only by the number of individual films to maintain a desirable morphology and structure in the blend films (as discussed previously in ref. [36]).…”

“…[38] On the other hand, the maximum achievable E of the films is dominated by the choice of electrically insulative supramolecular elastomer as shown by the experimental results and theoretical values derived on the basis of the equivalent Takayanagi model. [36] The multilayer film structures were made from self-bonding individual films with segregated structure and electrical anisotropy (Figure 1). The first step was to prepare the poly (3,4ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT:PSS) to form PEDOT-rich nanofibrils by coalescing the cores of the PEDOT:PSS microgel particles with the use of dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) at or above the 16 vol.% critical volume concentration.…”

“…However, the blending of immobile solid filler particles influences the viscoelastic characteristics of the composites and thus may compromise the other important material features, such as stretchability, toughness, notch-insensitivity, and self-healability. For soft electronics, another challenge with elastomers and their composites is that their toughness remarkably decreases when, e.g., notched, [36,37] and without self-healing functionality these materials are extremely prone to rupture under dynamic and static mechanical loading conditions. These conditions are crucial for soft and wearable electronic devices to endure in order to achieve reliable operation for a longer term.…”

“…In this work, for the first time, we show the application of organic conductor-supramolecular elastomer blend films as soft, stretchable, self-adhesive, and autonomously self-healing absorption-dominant EMI shielding and MWA with excellent performance. [36,38] The intrinsically soft and stretchable multilayered films were optimized for the purpose by also considering the orientation and number of the electrically anisotropic film layers in order to achieve excellent performance. The resulting absorption-dominant EMI SE reached ≈175 dB mm −1 which was maintainable at ≈122 dB mm −1 for ≈150% uniaxial tensile strain.…”