Highly elastic polymer substrates with local strain management for stretchable electronic applications

Abstract

Stretchable electronic devices have been extensively investigated in healthcare and wearable electronics. The stretchable substrate with strain control is paramount to integrating rigid devices into stretchable electronic systems for high mechanical strain. The common approach utilizes rigid strain control islands integrated on the surface of the soft stretchable matrix, but strain concentration effect and poor adhesion at the interface between the rigid islands and the elastic substrate are challenges. In this work, a stretchable substrate is developed by embedding the bottom strain control islands into the interior of an elastic substrate and the top strain control islands on the substrate surface to minimize strain concentration and improve the adhesion of the interface. The simulation results show that the strain concentration at the interface of the top island is suppressed and the maximum strain on the substrate surface is reduced by more than 30%. The interface between strain control islands of PI film and elastic substrate of Ecoflex can maintain more than 3000 stretch cycles under repeated strain of 100%. A stretchable inverter is fabricated based on this stretchable substrate with stretchable conductive wire. It is shown that the voltage transfer characteristics of the stretchable inverter have no significant change under strain of 100% for more than 3000 stretch cycles, demonstrating the capability of this stretchable substrate to integrate rigid devices for reliable stretchable electronic systems.