Nanofiber-reinforced transparent, tough, and self-healing substrate for an electronic skin with damage detection and program-controlled autonomic repair

Abstract

The self-healing ability introduced into the flexible electronics is of significance to realize the skin-like recovery of their original functions from unexpected damage, vastly boosting the development of sustainable electronics. However, simultaneously achieving excellent mechanical strength and reliable healing efficiency is confronted with extreme challenge. Herein, a nanofiber-reinforced self-healing substrate, primely mimicking the structure and functions of the human skin, is developed for an intelligent electronic skin (e-skin) with a controlled feedback system. The nanofiber-reinforced skin-like substrate exhibits tremendously enhanced mechanical properties, tensile strength and toughness considerably increasing by 836% and 1000% compared to those of pure matrix, as well as greatly reserving healing efficiency. This substrate also shows high transmittance of ~95%, satisfying the requirement of outstanding transparency in e-skin. Meanwhile, a multilayer-structure e-skin is developed based on the nanofiber-reinforced skin-like substrate, in which the program can detect damage and automatically accelerate healing through Joule heat. Owing to the programmed repairing capability, our transparent and robust e-skin shows promising potential as a superior alternative for artificial skin in the field of robotics.