A concept of stretchable coaxial cable based on one-body Au nanonetworks

Abstract

Recently, the demand for wearable electronics has sharply been increasing for diverse purposes. For the entire system to process enormous data simultaneously between the devices, the importance of stretchable interconnects with large bandwidth has been emphasized. However, achieving an appropriate attenuation level as well as stable transmission performance against elongation is still challenging. This report suggests the stretchable coaxial cable based on the one-body metal network, which is intrinsically stretchable and highly conductive. By multiple wrapping of the one-body metal network, excellent connectivity and electrical conductivity were realized. Its sheet resistance reached as low as that of the solid cylindrical metal. The low-loss cable was obtained through a simple fabrication procedure; its attenuation at 1 GHz remained under 0.011 and 0.033 dB/mm against 0% and 20% elongation, respectively. Also, it only experienced an insignificant change of the attenuation level (∼3.0%) during 100 stretching/releasing cycles, implying its feasibility of the dynamic connections in prospective applications.