Image of the Day: Bend and Stretch

Circuits made from a novel material are more flexible than ever before.

Sukanya Charuchandra
| 1 min read

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Bending, twisting, and stretching won’t disrupt these circuits.TANG ET AL.In research published in iScience June 14, researchers showcase an extremely elastic, biocompatible circuit. While polymers make it stretchy, liquid metals such as gallium and indium give the circuit conductivity.

“These are the first flexible electronics that are at once highly conductive and stretchable, fully biocompatible, and able to be fabricated conveniently across size scales with micro-feature precision,” Xingyu Jiang, a coauthor on the paper, says in a statement. “We believe that they will have broad applications for both wearable electronics and implantable devices.”

L. Tang et al., “Printable metal-polymer conductors for highly stretchable bio-devices,” iScience, doi:10.1016/j.isci.2018.05.013, 2018.

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Meet the Author

  • Sukanya Charuchandra

    Sukanya Charuchandra

    Originally from Mumbai, Sukanya Charuchandra is a freelance science writer based out of wherever her travels take her. She holds master’s degrees in Science Journalism and Biotechnology. You can read her work at sukanyacharuchandra.com.

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