Recent progress on stretchable conductors

Abstract

Flexible stretchable conductors have attracted wide attention due to their promising applications in information, energy, medical, national defense and other fields, where elastic conductors undergo large deformation and form intimate contact with three-dimensional irregular surfaces. Many conductive nanomaterials with excellent properties have been developed over the past decades, such as metal nanowires, carbon nanotubes, graphene and conductive polymers. One efficient method to prepare stretchable conductor is to disperse conductive materials into elastic matrix to form a conductive network, showing stretchability and conductivity. As an alternative way, elastic conductors show stable resistance change during stretch by use of buckled or serpentine structural design for rigid conductors. This review summarizes recent advances in flexible elastic conductors in the past five years. In addition, some flexible electronic devices such as light-emitting diodes, sensors, heaters, etc. are also discussed and the development direction in the field of flexible electronic devices is also suggested.