A highly conductive and electromechanically self-healable gold nanosheet electrode for stretchable electronics

Abstract

It is of great importance to develop self-healable and stretchable conductors with good electrical conductivity for durable stretchable electronics, retaining their electromechanical properties after the self-healing process even under various deformation conditions. Here, we demonstrate a novel room-temperature self-healable electrode with high electrical conductivity. This fabricated electrode consists of a multilayered gold nanosheet (AuNS) thin film on top of a highly adhesive elastomer that has a spontaneous self-healing capability based on host-guest interactions. The electrode exhibits a conductivity of over 570 S cm−1 and stretchability of 100% tensile strain. Although the conductive network is located only on the top surface of the polymer, the electrode shows a stable electrical performance up to 60% tensile strain after recovery from full bisection damage. The strong adhesion between the AuNSs and polymer as well as sliding at the AuNS/AuNS interface due to capping ligands help reconstruct the disrupted conductive pathway. A stretchable and self-healable light emitting diode (LED) dot matrix display is demonstrated by using the AuNS electrodes as the interconnections.