Temperature tolerant all-solid-state touch panel with high stretchablity, transparency and self-healing ability

Abstract

Stretchable and transparent soft ionic conductors have shown great promise in the development of next-generation touch panels. However, hydrogel/organogel-based devices suffer from instability due to liquid leakage or evaporation. Solvent-free ionic elastomers (ICEs) with high transparency (average light transmission of 93 %), intrinsic conductivity (ionic conductivity of 8.8 × 10–3 S m−1), and stretchability at room temperature (strain up to 997 %) are demonstrated in this study. These ICEs are self-healable over a wide range of operating temperatures (−20 to 60 °C) in the absence of external stimulus while maintaining a highly transparent appearance. They are available as an all-solid-state human-machine interactive touch panel with self-healing ability. A surface capacitive touch system is used to sense the location touched by a finger, demonstrating its ability to sense the finger position over a broad temperature range. The functionality of the wearable touch panel is demonstrated by writing text, playing piano, playing electronic games, and controlling the movement of a toy car.