Flexible electronics may have the potential to allow all sorts of new capabilities of monitoring and influencing the processes happening within our bodies. A number of teams around the world have developed different strategies for creating such electronics. Now the team of engineers at the North Carolina State University have come up with a new approach. They’ve taken a lesson from mother nature by mimicking the accordion-like structures within animals and plants to create an electronic device that can be repeatedly stretched while preserving its functionality.
The flexible apparatus is created by making a mold of parallel folds on top of which aluminum-doped zinc oxide is layered. A coating of an elastic polymer is placed onto the zinc oxide and the result removed from the mold. Since both the doped zinc oxide and the polymer coating are clear, the device remains transparent, while the metal component flexes without losing conductivity.
Here’s a demo video of the technology in its first iteration:
Study in Material Horizons: Multifunctional nano-accordion structures for stretchable transparent conductors…
Source: North Carolina State…