Highly Stretchable and Tough Self-healing Elastomer for Electronic Skin

Stanford researchers at the Bao Lab have designed and fabricated a highly stretchable, tough, and self-healable material with high fatigue resistance applicable for electronic (e-) skin devices. This silicone polymer material supramolecularly cross-links through multi-strength hydrogen bonding interactions. Remarkably, the healing can even take place in water at room temperature. The self-healable supramolecular network realizes a high fracture energy (~12,000 J/m²) and notch-insensitive stretching up to 1200%. It is readily moldable and stackable into stretchable 3D object shapes. This simple polymer design concept allows a broad range of mechanical property tuning desirable for targeted applications.

Figure

Figure description - Figure A. Schematics of a stretched polymer film (left), notched film (middle), and healed film (right). Figure B. The film before stretching (left) and showing high stretchability at 3000% stretching (right) in Instron machine.

Stage of Research