The team of CUHK (Shenzhen) Zhu Shiping and Zhang Qi: High-stretch, high-transparent, all-solid intrinsic conductive elasticity

The rapid development of flexible stretchable electronic devices in recent years has promoted extensive research on stretchable conductive materials
.

Among them, conductive elastomers have attracted much attention due to their excellent tensile properties, superior transparency, and all-solid-state characteristics

In view of this, the team of Shiping Zhu and Qi Zhang of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen) proposed a simple preparation of intrinsically conductive elastomers (ionic elastomers) to achieve the goal of both stretching and transparency
.

The research results were recently published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces (d oi: 10.
1021/acsami.

Figure 2.

Regulation of electrical and mechanical properties of ionic elastomers

Figure 3.

Stability of ionic elastomers

Figure 4.

Underwater sensor based on ionic elastomer

Figure 5.

Transparent dielectric elastomer driver based on ionic elastomer .
( A ) and ( b ) The basic structure and working principle of the dielectric elastomer driver .
( C ) Based on the driving effect of ionic elastomer .
( D ) Drive effect based on ion gel .

  The design strategy of ionic elastomers is mainly to link ions to the elastomer matrix by covalent bonds, and counter ions serve as transfer charges to form conductive pathways
.

Among them, the ionic liquid monomer ([EIC ₆ A][TFSI]) provides good ionic conductivity, butyl acrylate (BA) gives the elastomer excellent tensile properties, and the good compatibility of the two ensures the material’s High transparency (Figure 1)

Related link
https://pubs.

acs.
org/doi/full/10.
1021/acsami.
1c05833