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Scalable Manufacturing of Liquid Metal for Soft and Stretchable Electronics

Next-generation soft robots, wearable health monitoring devices, and human-machine interfaces require electronic systems that can maintain their performance under deformations. Thus, researchers have been developing materials and methods to enable high-performance soft electronic systems in diverse applications. While a variety of solutions have been presented, development of stretchable materials with a combination of high stretchability, electrical conductivity, cyclic stability, and manufacturability is still an open challenge. Throughout this dissertation, gallium-based<br>liquid metal alloy is used as the conductive material, leveraging its high conductivity and intrinsic stretchability for maintained performance under deformations. This dissertation presents both new liquid metal-based conductive materials and scalable manufacturing methods for the development of a diverse range of flexible and stretchable electronic circuits. First, a laser sintering method was developed to coalesce liquid metal micro/nanoparticles into soft, conductive structures enabled by oxide rupturing. The fast, non-contact, and maskless laser sintering technique, in combination with large-area spray-printing deposition, and high-throughput emulsion processing, provided a methodology to create different physical manifestations of liquid metal-based soft, stretchable, and reconfigurable electronics. Second, a liquid metal-based biphasic material was created using a thermal processing technique, yielding a printable, mechanically stable, and extremely stretchable conductor. This material’s compatibility with existing scalable manufacturing methods, robust interfaces with off-the-shelf electronic components, and electrical/mechanical cyclic stability enabled direct conversion of established circuit board assemblies to stretchable forms. The
work presented in this dissertation paves the way for future mass-manufacturing of<br>soft, stretchable circuits for direct integration into smart garments or soft robots. <br>

  1. 10.25394/pgs.12735221.v1
Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:purdue.edu/oai:figshare.com:article/12735221
Date16 December 2020
CreatorsShanliangzi Liu (9182996)
Source SetsPurdue University
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeText, Thesis
RightsCC BY 4.0
Relationhttps://figshare.com/articles/thesis/Scalable_Manufacturing_of_Liquid_Metal_for_Soft_and_Stretchable_Electronics/12735221

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