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Follow on Google News | Centennial Campus Researchers May Open Door to Stretchable ElectronicsNC State researchers are first to more than double the length of silicon nanowire on a substrate.
By: Gene Pinder, Director of Marketing “In order to create stretchable electronics, you need to put electronics on a stretchable substrate, but electronic materials themselves tend to be rigid and fragile,” says Dr. Yong Zhu, one of the researchers who created the new nanowire coils and an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at NC State. “Our idea was to create electronic materials that can be tailored into coils to improve their stretchability without harming the electric functionality of the materials.” Zhu's research team has created the first coils of silicon nanowire on a substrate that can be stretched to more than double their original length, moving us closer to developing stretchable electronic devices. Other researchers have experimented with “buckling” “An ideal shape to accommodate large deformation would lead to a uniform strain distribution along the entire length of the structure – a coil spring is one such ideal shape,” Zhu says. “As a result, the wavy materials cannot come close to the coils’ degree of stretchability.” Zhu’s team put a rubber substrate under strain and used very specific levels of ultraviolet radiation and ozone to change its mechanical properties, and then placed silicon nanowires on top of the substrate. The nanowires formed coils upon release of the strain. Other researchers have been able to create coils using freestanding nanowires, but have so far been unable to directly integrate those coils on a stretchable substrate. While the new coils’ mechanical properties allow them to be stretched an additional 104 percent beyond their original length, their electric performance cannot hold reliably to such a large range, possibly due to factors like contact resistance change or electrode failure, Zhu says. “We are working to improve the reliability of the electrical performance when the coils are stretched to the limit of their mechanical stretchability, which is likely well beyond 100 percent, according to our analysis.” A paper describing the research, “Controlled 3D Buckling of Silicon Nanowires for Stretchable Electronics,” NC State’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering is part of the university’s College of Engineering, which is located on Centennial Campus Written by Matt Shipman, NCSU News Services # # # Centennial Campus a research park and campus located at NC State University and has become a major hub of research activity associated with smart grid energy, biotechnology and life sciences, materials science, veterinary medicine, and nanotechnology. End
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