• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.36 no.6
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• pp.537-546
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• 2023

Intrinsically stretchable light-emitting diodes, composed of stretchable electrodes, charge transport layers, and luminescent materials, have garnered significant interest for enhancing human well-being and advancing the field of deformable electronics. Various luminescent materials, such as perovskites and organics, have been integrated with stretchable elastomers to function as the stretchable emissive layers in these intrinsically stretchable LEDs. Stretchable conductors including Ag nanowire based percolating structures and conducting polymers have been utilized as stretchable transparent electrode. Despite this progress, their performances in terms of efficiency and stability remain challenging compared to their structurally stretchable and rigid LED counterparts. This review offers a comprehensive overview of recent advancements in intrinsically stretchable LEDs, focusing on material innovations.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.370-377
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• 2023

Soft and stretchable electronics, equipped with diverse functional devices, have recently garnered attention owing to their versatility in applications such as stretchable displays, flexible batteries, and electronic skin (e-skin). A fundamental challenge in realizing stretchable electronics lies in conferring the necessary flexibility to crucial electrical components such as electrodes and devices. However, the prevalent electronic materials, exhibit limited stretchability, presenting a significant obstacle to the advancement of soft and stretchable electronics. To overcome this challenge, various strategies rooted in geometrical engineering have been explored to enhance the adaptability of rigid materials. This study delves into the realm of geometrical engineering by, examining techniques such as serpentine patterns, kirigami-inspired designs, and island structures, with a keen focus on recent progress and future prospects.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.25-34
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• 2018

In this paper, we review the latest technical progress and commercialization of stretchable interconnectors, stretchable strain sensors, and stretchable substrates for stretchable electronics. The development of stretchable electronics can pave a way for new applications such as wearable devices, bio-integrated devices, healthcare and monitoring, and soft robotics. The essential components of stretchable electronic devices are stretchable interconnector and stretchable substrate. Stretchable interconnector should have high stretchability and high electrical conductivity as well as stability under severe mechanical deformation. Therefore several nanocomposite-based materials using CNT, graphene, nanowire, and metal flake have been developed. Geometric engineering such as wavy, serpentine, buckled and mesh structure has been well developed. Stretchable substrate should also pose high stretchability and compatibility with stretchable sensing or interconnecting material. We summarize the recent research results of new materials for stretchable interconnector and substrate as well as strain sensors. The Important challenges in development of the stretchable interconnector and substrate are also briefly discussed.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.7-14
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• 2015

Recently, advances in nano-material researches have opened the door for various transparent conductive materials, which include carbon nanotube, graphene, Ag and Cu nanowire, and printable metal grids. Among them, Ag nanowires are particularly interesting to synthesize because bulk Ag exhibits the highest electrical conductivity among all metals. Here we reviewed recently-published research works introducing various devices from organic light emitting diode to tactile sensing devices, all of which are employing AgNW for a conducting material. They proposed methods to enhance the stretchability and reversibility of the transparent electrodes, and apply them to make various flexible and stretchable electronics. It is expected that Ag nanowires are applicable to a wide range of high-performance, low-cost, stretchable electronic devices.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.29-29
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• 2008

Realization of electronics with performance equal to established technologies that use rigid semiconductor wafers, but in lightweight, foldable and stretchable formats would enable many new application possibilities. Examples include wearable systems for personal health monitoring, 'smart' surgical gloves with integrated electronics and electronic eye type imagers that incorporate focal plane arrays on hemispherical substrates. Circuits that use organic or certain classes of inorganic electronic materials on plastic or steel foil substrates can provide some degree of mechanical flexibility, but they cannot be folded or stretched. Also, with few exceptions such systems offer only modest electrical performance. In this talk, I will present a new approach to high performance, flexible and stretchable integrated circuits. These systems combine single-crystal silicon nanoribbons with thin plastic or elastomeric substrates using both "top-down" and "transfer-printing" technologies. The strategies represent promising routes to high performance, flexible and stretchable optoelectronic devices that can incorporate established, high performance inorganic electronic materials.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.525-530
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• 2023

Stretchable piezoelectric energy harvester (S-PEHs) based on composite materials are considered one of the potential candidates for realizing wearable self-powered devices for smart clothing and electronic skin. However, low energy conversion performance and expensive stretchable electrodes are major bottlenecks hindering the development and application of S-PEHs. Here, we fabricated the S-PEH by adopting the piezoelectric composites with enhanced stress transfer properties and kirigami-patterned textile electrodes. The optimum contents of piezoelectric BaTiO₃ nanoparticles inside the carbon nanotube/ecoflex composite were selected as 30 wt% considering the trade-off between stretchability and energy harvesting performance of the device. The final S-PEH shows an output voltage and mechanical stability of ~5 V and ~3,000 cycles under repeated 150% of tensile strain, respectively. This work presents a cost-effective and scalable way to fabricate stretchable piezoelectric devices for self-powered wearable electronic systems.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.129-135
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• 2018

In the stretchable electronic devices, the stretchable substrate is a very essential material which determines the stretchability, performances and durability of the stretchable electronic devices. In particular, the current stretchable materials have hysteresis making difficult to used as sensors and other electronic devices. In this study, we developed a PDMS-Ecoflex hybrid stretchable substrate mixed with PDMS and Ecoflex material in order to increase stretchability and improve hysteresis characteristics. Mechanical behavior of the hybrid substrate was evaluated using a tensile test, and optical transmittance of the hybrid substrate was also measured. As the content of Ecoflex increases, the PDMS-Ecoflex hybrid substrate becomes more flexible, and the elastic modulus decreases. In addition, the PDMS substrate failed a tensile strain of 270%, while the PDMS-Ecoflex hybrid substrate did not fail even at 500% strain indicating excellent stretchability. In the repeated tensile test, the hybrid substrate with 2:1 mixing ratio of PDMS and Ecoflex showed hysteresis. On the other hand, in the case of the hybrid substrate with the mixing ratio of 1:1, hysteresis did not occur at a strain of 50% and 100%. Hence, we developed a stretchable substrate with over 150% stretchability and no hysteresis characteristics. The optical transmittance of the Ecoflex substrate was 68.6%, whereas the transmittances of the hybrid substrate with mixing ratio of 2:1 and 1:1 were 78.6% and 75.4%, respectively. These results indicate that the PDMS-Ecoflex hybrid substrate is a potential candidate for a transparent stretchable substrate.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.289-300
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• 2000

Stretchable textile materials are getting more widely used in clothing industry. Among others are two obvious reasons which make it so desirable to young female customers, i.e., better confort with motion and more closely fitted silhouette. But these two points cannot get along well always. If a manufacturer try hard to make his products too closely fit, then the products are even less comfortable than made of non-stretchable material. On the other hand, if a stretchable garment are developed to be too comfortable with plenty of size tolerance. it cannot attract customers who are looking for something closely fit. So the study was aimed to investigate appropriate size tolerances.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.30 no.10
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• pp.609-614
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• 2017

The proposed stretchable transparent electrodes based on silver nanowires (AgNWs) were prepared on a polyurethane (PU) substrate. In order toavoid the surface roughness caused by the silver nanowires, a titanium oxide ($TiO_2$) buffer layer was addedby coating and heating the organometallic sol-gel solution. The fabricated stretchable electrodes showedan electrical sheet resistance of $24{\Omega}sq^{-1}$, 78% transmittance at 550 nm, and an average surface roughness below 5 nm. Furthermore, the AgNW-based electrode maintained its initial electrical resistance under 130% strain testing conditions, without the assistance of additional conductive polymer layers. In this paper, the critical role of the $TiO_2$ buffer layer between the AgNW network and the PU substrate has been discussed.

• Journal of Industrial Technology
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.25-31
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• 2023

Stretchable and flexible electronics that comply with dynamic movements and micromotion of the human tissues can enable real-time monitoring of physiologic signals onto the human skin and in the brain, respectively. Especially, gallium based liquid metal stretchable electronics can offer human-interactive biosensors to monitor various physiologic parameters. However, the liquid-like nature, surface oxidation and contamination by organic materials, and low biostability of the liquid metals have still limited the long-term use as bioelectronics. Here we introduced electrochemical deposition without oxidation pathways to overcome these practical challenges in liquid metal bioelectronics. CNT/PDDA composite with reduction way and PEDOT:BF₄ with oxidation way under organic solvent are suggested as rationally designed material engineering approaches. We confirmed that the structures with the soft, flexible, and stretchable liquid metal platform can successfully detect dopamine with a high sensitivity and selectivity, record neural signals including action potentials without scar formation, and monitor physiologic signals such as EMG and ECG.