Stretchable and biodegradable self-healing conductors for multifunctional electronics
Tae‐Min Jang, Won Bae Han, Seungkeun Han, Ankan Dutta, Jun Hyeon Lim, Tae-Kyung Kim, Bong Hee Lim, Gwan‐Jin Ko, Jeong‐Woong Shin, Kaveti Rajaram, Heeseok Kang, Chan‐Hwi Eom, So Jeong Choi, Amay J. Bandodkar, Kyu‐Sung Lee, Eunkyoung Park, Huanyu Cheng, Woon‐Hong Yeo, Suk‐Won Hwang
Abstract
As the regenerative mechanisms of biological organisms, self-healing provides useful functions for soft electronics or associated systems. However, there have been few examples of soft electronics where all components have self-healing properties while also ensuring compatibility between components to achieve multifunctional and resilient bio-integrated electronics. Here, we introduce a stretchable, biodegradable, self-healing conductor constructed by combination of two layers: (i) synthetic self-healing elastomer and (ii) self-healing conductive composite with additives. Abundant dynamic disulfide and hydrogen bonds of the elastomer and conductive composite enable rapid and complete recovery of electrical conductivity (~1000 siemens per centimeter) and stretchability (~500%) in response to repetitive damages, and chemical interactions of interpenetrated polymer chains of these components facilitate robust adhesion strength, even under extreme mechanical stress. System-level demonstration of soft, self-healing electronics with diagnostic/therapeutic functions for the urinary bladder validates the possibility for versatile, practical uses in biomedical research areas.