Hierarchically buckled sheath-core fibers for superelastic electronics, sensors, and muscles

TLDR

Stretchable electronic skins could enable sensor and actuator networks on curved surfaces, yet creating interconnects that endure large strains remains challenging. The authors fabricated superelastic fibers by depositing carbon‑nanotube sheets onto a prestretched rubber core, producing a buckled sheath–core structure. Upon core relaxation the nanotube sheath buckles yet remains fully coated, allowing extreme stretchability with minimal resistance change. Liu et al., *Science*, this issue p.

Abstract

Composite stretchable conducting wires Think how useful a stretchable electronic “skin” could be. For example you could place it over an aircraft fuselage or a body to create a network of sensors, processors, energy stores, or artificial muscles. But it is difficult to make electronic interconnects and strain sensors that can stretch over such surfaces. Liu et al. created superelastic conducting fibers by depositing carbon nanotube sheets onto a prestretched rubber core (see the Perspective by Ghosh). The nanotubes buckled on relaxation of the core, but continued to coat it fully and could stretch enormously, with relatively little change in resistance. Science , this issue p. 400 ; see also p. 382