The secret is mechanically-reinforced ionogel conductors, according to Pusan National University, where the emitter was developed.
“We developed stretchable and durable conductive ionogels with a double-network structure, which is achieved by combining stretchable soft polymer network with stress-resistive hard polymer network,” said researcher Jinhwan Yoon.
This ionogel was used to fabricate the electroluminescent emitters, that continued to work despite stretching to 12x original length, bending, rolling and twisting.
In addition, the emitters continued to emit light over 1,000 stretch-release cycles, or at temperatures as high as 200°C.
“We believe that the future of electronics would be deformable and stretchable beyond simply flexible and bendable for wearable application,” said Yoon. “With the soft electrode platform we developed, it is expected that more development on wearable electronics can be boosted, thereby people can wear lots of unprecedented devices enabling them to monitor their motion and health condition, display the
The paper describes the ionogel as a double network of poly(N-isopropylacrylamide-co-N,N′-diethylacrylamide) and chitosan, reinforced by ionic and covalent crosslinking of the chitosan network with tripolyphosphate and glutaraldehyde respectively.