Skin-Inspired Stretchable and Autonomous Self-Healing Transistors Based on Supramolecular Polymer

Skin-like electronic devices, designed to seamlessly conform to the human body, have been rapidly developed by stretchable soft electronic materials, which enables conformal contact on skin, organs, and even tissues to acquire bioelectric signals with minimizing foreign body sensation. Self-healing is another vital ability of the skin with mechanical stretchability for long term survival against unexpected damages and accordingly, it becomes more important for emerging wearable devices applications such as biosignal monitoring, medical implants, human-computer interaction, and health care. It is crucial to develop skin-inspired OFETs with autonomously self-healing ability over microscale damage as well as strain-insensitive electrical property at least 30 % strain (human skin’s stretchability) for the skin electronics. Despite recent significant advancements in skin-like stretchable transistors, imparting self-healing ability while maintaining necessary electrical performance to these transistors remains a challenge. Herein, we reported autonomous self-healing OFETs satisfying the above requirements for skin electronics. The transistor device employed supramolecular polymer material matrix, which is crosslinked through controlled multi-strength hydrogen bonding interactions, to all active layers, i.e., conductor, semiconducting, and dielectric layers. As a result, the transistor devices could be healed with micronscale damage in transistor configuration without any treatments while ensuring effective charge injection and transport. Furthermore, skin-like self-healing circuits, including active-matrix arrays, inverters, NAND, and NOR gates are fabricated using these transistors and preserved both their configuration and electrical performance under 30 % biaxial strain and after healing.