Interest in wearable and stretchable on‐skin motion sensors has grown rapidly in recent years. To expand their applicability, the sensing element must accurately detect external stimuli; however, weak adhesiveness of the sensor to a target object has been a major challenge in developing such practical and versatile devices. In this study, freestanding, stretchable, and self‐adhesive ionogel conductors are demonstrated which are composed of an associating polymer network and ionic liquid that enable conformal contact between the sensor and skin even during dynamic movement. The network of ionogel is formed by noncovalent association of two diblock copolymers, where phase‐separated micellar clusters are interconnected via hydrogen bonds between corona blocks. The resulting ionogels exhibit superior adhesive characteristics, including a very high lift‐off force of 93.3 N m−1, as well as excellent elasticity (strain at break ≈720%), toughness (≈2479 kJ m−3), thermal stability (≈150 °C), and high ionic conductivity (≈17.8 mS cm−1 at 150 °C). These adhesive ionogels are successfully applied to stretchable on‐skin strain sensors as sensing elements. The resulting devices accurately monitor the movement of body parts such as the wrist, finger, ankle, and neck while maintaining intimate contact with the skin, which was not previously possible with conventional non‐adhesive ionogels.
High-temperature durability is critical for application of organic materials in electronic devices that operate in harsh environments. In this work, thermostable physically cross-linked polymer electrolytes, or thermostable physical ion gels, were successfully developed using crystallization-induced phase separation of semicrystalline polyamides (PAs) in an ionic liquid (IL). In these ion gels, phase-separated PA crystals act as network junctions and enable the ion gels to maintain their mechanical integrity up to 180 °C. ILs and ion gels are suitable electrolyte candidates for thin-film devices operating at high temperatures because they outperform other electrolytes that use aqueous and organic solvents, owing to their superior thermal stability and nonvolatility. In addition to thermal stability, the PA gels exhibited high ionic conductivity (∼1 mS/cm) and specific capacitance (∼10 μF/cm2) at room temperature; these values increased significantly with increasing temperature, while the gel retained its solid-state mechanical integrity. These thermostable ion gels were successfully used as an electrolyte gate dielectric in organic thin-film transistors that operate at high temperatures (ca. 150 °C) and low voltages (<1 V). The transistors gated with the dielectrics had a high on/off current ratio of (3.04 ± 0.24) × 105 and a hole mobility of 2.83 ± 0.20 cm2/V·s. By contrast, conventional physical ion gels based on semicrystalline polymers of poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-hexafluoropropylene) and polyvinylidene fluoride lost their mechanical integrity and dewetted from a semiconductor channel at lower temperatures. Therefore, these results demonstrate an effective method of generating thermally stable, mechanically robust, and highly conductive solid polymer electrolytes for electronic and electrochemical devices operating in a wide temperature range.
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