◇ A rubber fiber/nano-particles conductive nano composite, which is printable and stretchable developed
◇ Nature Nanotechnology announced. "Open up the possibility of direct printing of circuit"
□ For development of bendable and pullable electronic device, it is necessary and critical to develop stretchable electrode that keep electrical properties and remains stable with physical deformation like bending, elongation.
However it was difficult to secure two specifications at the same time because high conductivity and stretchability seem to be mutually exclusive parameters.
□ Stretchable electrodes that were developed until the present are the elastic body material including conductive particles, the metal nanowire and carbon nano tube (CNT) coated on elongation available material.
By the way, there was a limitation of practical application to device because these materials had difficulties to maintain conductivity and to form fine patterns when high elongation occurs on them.
□ For such a problem solving, SAIT (Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology) and Professor UnRyong Jeong (Yonsei University) research lab secured stretchable electrode technology by realizing nano fiber composite material that is applied silver (Ag) precursor, which has excellent electric conductivity to rubber high molecule.
□ It was able to tied with silver (Ag) nanoparticles in nano rubber fiber composites by transforming to silver (Ag) nanoparticles with printing and returning silver (Ag) precursor solution to the thing after it used the electros pinning method and with rubber macromolecule and made a nanofiber composites of the 150 microns thickness, and having found stable elasticity.
□ This research proposed the possibility of the practical application of the elasticity electrode from the formation of silver nanoparticles formed in a nanofiber composites, the conductive mechanism, and the demolition interpretation of recursion expansion.
The point where there is patterning on a wish in low-priced printing operation was highly appreciated.
□ The percolation of the silver nanoparticles inside the fibres, manufactured by the technology, leads to a high bulk conductivity, which is preserved at large deformations (s ？2,200 S cm-1 at 100% strain for a 150-mm-thick mat).
□ The printing of the precursor solution can use the general methods such as spray printing, ink-jet, the nozzle printing, and the configuration of the circuit as a large-scale is easily available.
□ In the future, the research teams have a plan to research to develop wearable electronics, textile electronics, and e-skin sensors by using the technology of manufacturing elasticity electrode.
□ This research was supported in part by a National Research Foundation (NRF) grant funded by the Korean Government (MEST) through the Active Polymer Center Pattern Integration, by the Advanced Soft Electronics under the Global Frontier Research Program and by the World Class University Program.