Strain resilient and self-healing nanocomposite conductors with ultralow sheet resistance

Abstract

Abstract Strain resilient nanocomposite conductors with self-healing ability are vital for skin-mounted devices and system-level bioelectronics, especially for wireless systems that require extremely low surface resistance and high stability of electromagnetic wave transmission. However, nanocomposite conductors inherently suffer from a trade-off between conductivity and flexible deformability or self-healing ability. Herein, a strain resilient and self-healing conductor (with ultralow sheet resistance of 10.8 mΩ/sq) is fabricated based on a well-designed polymer binder. It not only maintains outstanding stretchability (a break at elongation over 700%) and electrical stability during repeated stretching (1000 cycles) but also exhibits self-healing performance. On this basis, a flexible antenna with outstanding electromagnetic performance (realized gain of 5.25 dBi, nearly equivalent to that of copper-based devices), excellent self-healing ability is realized for wireless e-skin which can support instant communication exceeding 70 m. This approach overcomes the trade-off between high conductivity and excellent mechanical property in nanocomposite conductor and paves the way for completely self-healing flexible antenna towards wireless e-skins.