Hydrogen-doped viscoplastic liquid metal microparticles for stretchable printed metal lines

Abstract

Conductive and stretchable electrodes that can be printed directly on a stretchable substrate have drawn intensive attention for wearable electronics and electronic skins. Printable inks containing liquid metal (LM) are strong candidates for these applications, but the insulating oxide skin forming around LM particles limits their conductivity. This study reveals that hydrogen doping (H-doping) introduced by ultrasonication in the presence of aliphatic polymers makes the oxide skin highly conductive and deformable. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and atom probe tomography confirms hydrogen doping, and first-principles calculations are used to rationalize the obtained conductivity. Printed circuit lines show metallic conductivity (25,000 S/cm), excellent electromechanical decoupling at 500% uniaxial stretching, mechanical resistance to scratches, and long-term stability in wide ranges of temperature and humidity. The self-passivation of the printed lines allows direct printing of 3D circuit lines and double-layer planar coils that are used as stretchable inductive strain sensors.Stretchable electronic devices have received widespread attention for potential uses in healthcare monitoring 1-3 , electronic skins 4,5 , and wearable haptic devices 6,7 . One of the key technological issues in stretchable electronics is the fabrication of stretchable circuit lines, for which several characteristics are requested simultaneously; metallic conductivity, negligible resistance changes under deformations, electrical stability in harsh environments, printing of complicated circuit designs, passivation 8 , and good adhesion to elastomeric substrates 9 . Serpentine and buckled metal interconnections have achieved a few of the above requests such as metallic conductivity, small resistance changes, some degree of deformability, and environmental stability 10 . Other progress has been with conductive elastomer composites with respect to high

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