Large-Scale Fabrication of Highly Elastic Conductors on a Broad Range of Surfaces

Recently, great stretchability progress has been witnessed in elastic electronics. However, such electronics are costly, toxic, or cannot pattern on a broad range of substrates, which limit their large-scale fabrications and applications. Here, to overcome those limitations, an ink comprising liquid metal particles and desirable polymer solutions is developed. The polymer solutions in our ink can be adjusted to print on different surfaces and avoid toxic organic solvents in most cases. The ink can be sintered by a small strain (∼10%) in room temperature. Using our ink, conductors with high stretchability (380000 S/m at a strain of 1000%) can be printed in low consumption (liquid metal consumption 3.27 mg/cm²), in a large area (bestrew the entire surface of a T-shirt), and in high throughputs (∼10⁵ cm²/h). The ink can be printed on a T-shirt to achieve a smart wearable platform that integrates electronics for strain/electrophysiology/electrochemistry detection and temperature monitoring/controlling.