Noble Stretchable Nanomembrane Electrode with Exceptional Performance

Stretchable electrodes are a vital component for the stretchable electronics. Among various material candidates for stretchable conductors, nanocomposites of metal nanomaterial and elastomer have been considered as one of the most promising materials. However, nanocomposites fabricated by conventional methods have been confronted with several limitations such as thickness over tens of micrometer scale, low conductivity, poor stretchability, and large patterning dimensions. Therefore, a novel stretchable electrode that can overcome all these limitations has been requested for the advances of stretchable electronics.<br/>In this study¹⁾, we present a <b>new afloat assembly method of metal nanomaterials for the fabrication of an extremely conductive, elastic, and ultrathin nanomembrane</b>. Such remarkable material properties are attributed to its unique cross-sectional structure, in which a monolayer of compactly-assembled nanomaterials is partially embedded in an ultrathin elastomer membrane.<br/>The elastomer membrane distributes applied strain, allowing the nanomembrane to have comparable elasticity to the bare elastomer membrane despite the high nanomaterial content (&gt;80 wt%). Contacts between nanomaterials can be reinforced through cold welding, and stacking of two layers of nanomembranes improves electrical properties further, which leads to <b>a conductivity of &gt;100,000 S/cm</b>. Furthermore, a reasonably <b>high conductivity of ~30,000 S/cm can be maintained even under &gt;1,000% stretching</b>. We successfully demonstrated multifunctional skin-mounted sensor array by using the photolithography patterning method.<br/>References<br/>1) Jung, Dongjun, et al. "Highly conductive and elastic nanomembrane for skin electronics." <i>Science</i>, <b>2021</b><i>,</i> 373, 1022-1026.