Stretchable and Transparent Kirigami Conductor of Nanowire Percolation Network for Electronic Skin Applications

TLDR

Current approaches to create comfortable, body‑conforming electronic skins rely on serpentine designs, ultrathin films, or nanomaterials, yet each has limitations in simultaneously achieving mechanical conformity and imperceptibility. The authors introduce a kirigami‑based fabrication method to pattern highly conductive, transparent electrodes that can be configured into diverse, stretchable shapes for electronic‑skin devices. They pattern the electrodes by applying kirigami cuts to a nanowire percolation network, enabling tunable elasticity and high optical transparency. The resulting electrodes exhibit over 400 % stretchability with strain‑invariant conductivity, >80 % transparency, and excellent durability, enabling ultrastretchable heaters, conformal electrophysiology sensors, and human‑machine interfaces on drones.

Abstract

Recent research progress of relieving discomfort between electronics and human body involves serpentine designs, ultrathin films, and extraordinary properties of nanomaterials. However, these strategies addressed thus far each face own limitation for achieving desired form of electronic-skin applications. Evenly matched mechanical properties anywhere on the body and imperceptibility of electronics are two essentially required characteristics for future electronic-skin (E-skin) devices. Yet accomplishing these two main properties simultaneously is still very challenging. Hence, we propose a novel fabrication method to introduce kirigami approach to pattern a highly conductive and transparent electrode into diverse shapes of stretchable electronics with multivariable configurability for E-skin applications. These kirigami engineered patterns impart tunable elasticity to the electrodes, which can be designed to intentionally limit strain or grant ultrastretchability depending on applications over the range of 0 to over 400% tensile strain with strain-invariant electrical property and show excellent strain reversibility even after 10 000 cycles stretching while exhibiting high optical transparency (>80%). The versatility of this work is demonstrated by ultrastretchable transparent kirigami heater for personal thermal management and conformal transparent kirigami electrophysiology sensor for continuous health monitoring of human body conditions. Finally, by integrating E-skin sensors with quadrotor drones, we have successfully demonstrated human-machine-interface using our stretchable transparent kirigami electrodes.