A Sunlight-Degradable Autonomous Self-Healing Supramolecular Elastomer for Flexible Electronic Devices

Abstract

Preparing an autonomous self-healing supramolecular elastomer with sunlight degradability is still a challenging task in related fields. In this work, we report a supramolecular elastomer by using the classic host–guest complexation of visible-light-photolabile picolinium-containing adamantanes (Ad) and β-cyclodextrin nanogels (β-CD). The as-synthesized elastomer possesses merits of high mechanical strength, excellent stretchability (>1500% strain), efficient self-healing (>85% at 60 min), ultrastability against electrolytes, and photodegradation properties, implying versatile applications in flexible and stretchable electronics. As proofs-of-concept, self-healable strain and pressure sensors using conductive elastomers are first fabricated, which feature exceptionally high sensitivity (e.g., 0.1% in capacitance at 0.2 kPa) and fast response to detect human body motions. A degradable and flexible supercapacitor is also fabricated using the conductive elastomer as the flexible matrix. Remarkably, both the ...