Researchers in Shanghai are delving further into 3D printing conductors, with their findings recently published in ‘A highly transparent and ultra-stretchable conductor with stable conductivity during large deformation.’ Authors Zhouyue Lei and Peiyi Wu follow up on the increasing development of stretchable conductors and improvements being made in their electromechanical properties, along with studying issues with deformation and defects—and ways to break through such limits.

 

Molecular synergistic design. a Schematic illustration of the molecular synergistic design, including the optimized ion-rich structure predicted by DFT and the dynamic hydrogen-bond networks. b The true tensile stress–strain curves of the conductors with different contents of the IL. The strain rate is 0.17 s−1. c The SAXS profile of the intrinsically stretchable conductor.

 

The inset picture is the AFM phase image of the conductor. (scale bar: 100 nm) d IR spectra and corresponding second derivative curves of the intrinsically stretchable conductor, […]

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