The circuits will also stretch without losing their electrical connection, as the team pulled the device to over 10 times its original length without failure during the research.
Want a smartphone that stretches, takes damage, and still doesn't miss a call?
A team of Virginia Tech researchers from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Macromolecules Innovation Institute has created a new type of soft electronics, paving the way for devices that are self-healing, reconfigurable, and recyclable. These skin-like circuits are soft and stretchy, sustain numerous damage events under load without losing electrical conductivity, and can be recycled to generate new circuits at the end of a product's life.
Led by Assistant Professor Michael Bartlett, the team recently published its findings in Communications Materials, an open access journal from Nature Research.
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