4mm diameter elastomer fibres are a promising substrate for electronics in clothing, according to Nottingham Trent University, which is investigating washable stretchable medical wearables. To make the electronic fibre, a long thin flexible PCB is helically wound along, and bonded to, the elastomer core, with its components facing inwards. “The basic idea has been around for centuries – it’s the ...
Elastomer electrolytes might be the answer to safe lithium-metal batteries, according to researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Batteries using lithium metal anodes rather than lithium ions promise high capacities, but a tendency to grow internal cell-shorting spike-like metal dendrites makes them a risky, or even unsafe, proposition if liquid electrolytes are used. Solid inorganic or polymer electrolytes can ...
The University of Cambridge has developed a squishy jelly with 80% water content that is unfazed by being run over with a car. “At 80% water content, you’d think it would burst apart like a water balloon, but it doesn’t: it stays intact and withstands huge compressive forces,” said Professor Oren Scherman who led the research. “The properties of the ...
Harvard University has improved the presure capability of elastomeric valves, avoiding the choice between soft but weak valves, or capable but rigid valves, in soft robotics, it said. “Today’s rigid regulation systems considerably limit the adaptability and mobility of fluid-driven soft robots,” said Professor Robert Wood of Harvard’s school of engineering and applied sciences (SEAS). “We have developed soft and lightweight ...
University of Houston have created an elastic semiconductor with 8.57cm2/Vs charge carrier mobility, and then made transistors, logic and a sensor array from it. Carrier mobility is largely retained when stretched by 50%. The semiconductor concerned is poly(3-hexylthiophene) – ‘P3HT’. This is not the first time the team has made stretchy transistors from this material, but it is the first time that ...
An engineered substrate is the key to a stretchable OLED display built by Korean lab KAIST, that could lead to stretchable full-colour displays. Updated with more photos below Right: display bent over a fingertip The novel substrate is there to allow rigid pixels to be incorporated. “Traditional intrinsically stretchable OLEDs have commercial limitations due to their low efficiency in the ...
Soft robots can be be designed to move in predictable ways, and then 3D printed, according to Purdue University
Adding a liquid metal to a silicone elastomer can create a rubbery heatsink, which has been nicknamed 'thubber'.
Flexible mechanical sensors that can be bonded or sewn into woven or knitted fabrics have been developed by German research lab Fraunhofer ISC. Deformation, force and pressure can be measured, and strains up to 100% (doubling length) can be endured. It is an elastomer film with flexible electrodes on both sides. Electrode patterning can be used to create an array ...
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