Three-Dimensional Stretchable Microelectronics by Projection
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www.acsami.org Research Article Three-Dimensional Stretchable Microelectronics by Projection Microstereolithography (PμSL) Yuejiao Wang, Xiang Li, Sufeng Fan, Xiaobin Feng, Ke Cao, Qi Ge,* Libo Gao,* and Yang Lu* Cite This: https://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acsami.0c20162 Read Online ACCESS Metrics & More Article Recommendations *sı Supporting Information ABSTRACT: Stretchable and flexible electronics conformal to human skin or implanted into biological tissues has attracted considerable interest for emerging applications in health monitoring and medical treatment. Although various stretchable materials and structures have been designed and manufactured, most are limited to two-dimensional (2D) layouts for interconnects and active components. Here, by using projection microstereolithography (PμSL)-based three-dimensional (3D) printing, we introduce a versatile microfabrication process to push the manufacturing limit and achieve previously inaccessible 3D geometries at a high resolution of 2 μm. After coating the printed microstructures with thin Au films, the 3D conductive structures offer exceptional stretchability (∼130%), conformability, and stable electrical conductivity (<5% resistance change at 100% tensile strain). This fabrication process can be further applied to directly create complicated 3D interconnect networks of sophisticated active components, as demonstrated with a stretchable capacitive pressure sensor array here. The proposed scheme allows a simple, facile, and scalable manufacturing route for complex, integrated 3D flexible electronic systems. KEYWORDS: stretchable electronics, flexible electronics, 3D microelectronics, 3D printing, advanced manufacturing ■ INTRODUCTION the driven mechanism of compressive buckling leads to a finite Stretchable and flexible electronics holds superior mechanical level of complexities and diversities in the formed 3D characteristics to be bendable, stretchable, and twistable, thus topologies. offering promising opportunities for diverse fields including By contrast, 3D printing selectively builds materials layer by 1−3 4−6 − layer to fabricate required structures. The one-step manufac- biomedical engineering, robotics, human machine ffi interfaces,7,8 and so forth. The two prevailing approaches turing greatly improves production e ciency and lowers costs, and the technology also enables more 3D design freedom and enabling stretchable electronics explore conceptually different 9 material selectivity, thus providing an effective access to principles. One approach utilizes intrinsically stretchable producing electronics. Various 3D printing techniques have materialssuchasconductive nanomaterial-doped soft 10−12 13−16 been reported for creating stretchable and flexible electronics elastomers, conductive polymers, and hydro- 34−38 38−44 17−19 varying from the 2D form to 3D geometries. Here, gels. However, these novel materials exhibit low or See https://pubs.acs.org/sharingguidelines for options on how to legitimately share published articles. we take the advantage of projection microstereolithography strain-sensitive electrical conductivities, causing unwanted μ Downloaded via SOUTHERN UNIV SCI & TECHLGY CHINA on February 23, 2021 at 07:31:03 (UTC). (P SL), a digital light processing-based 3D printing technol- variations in electrical signals for intended applications. The ogy, that fabricates highly complex 3D geometries with high other approach creates structures to eliminate the strain of resolution (up to 2 μm) through area ultraviolet (UV) traditional high-performance electronic materials including projection which triggers localized photopolymerization.45 metals and semiconductors, such as planar curvy struc- − Using this 3D microfabrication approach, the most stretchable tures20 23 and honeycomb geometries.24,25 The combination 3D geometries according to finite element analyses (FEAs) can of structure design with novel materials has also been applied be easily built up as a polymer template. After sputter coating to additionally increase the stretchability and decrease the thin Au films on the surface of the printed template, the as- resistance change.26 Recent research efforts have been devoted obtained 3D conductive structures demonstrate exceptional to building stretchable 3D architectures by buckling 2D − geometries on a prestrained elastomer support.27 33 A set of 3D layouts of membranes or ribbons from nano- to Received: November 11, 2020 macroscales can be achieved, but the approach requires Accepted: February 5, 2021 complicated programming of initial 2D patterns and a series of sophisticated fabrication procedures including depositing material layers, patterning by photolithography, etching, transferring 2D precursors, and defining bonding sites. Also, © XXXX American Chemical Society https://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acsami.0c20162 A ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces www.acsami.org Research Article stretchability (∼130%), conformability, strain-insensitive elec- 3D composite structures can be assembled with functional trical properties (<5% resistance variation under 100% tensile components on substrates and finally turned into practical strain), and stability under cyclic loading. Compared with their applications. 2D counterparts, the 3D microstructures present compact FEA was utilized as shown in Figure 2 to compare different geometries (Figure S3) and can deform freely out of plane to 3D structure designs of the polymer template for accommodat- accommodate much larger stretching strains. Furthermore, the ing large applied deformation, so that the intrinsic strains in the access of PμSL-based 3D printing to intricate free-form coated conductive films on its surface could be minimized. architectures can be exploited to realize integrated circuits by Although the utility of 2D curvy structures as stretchable one-step manufacturing. To provide a demonstration example, interconnects has been established by previous studies, the an array of sophisticated 3D capacitive pressure sensors physical coupling with the substrate leads to a sharp stress interconnected by 3D stretchable microstructures was concentration and limits their performance.31 Obviously, the fabricated. This proposed strategy shows great potential for extension of these structures to 3D construction could further manufacturing complex, integrated 3D electronic systems due improve stretchability since they can deform freely out of plane to its simplicity, high level of design freedom, and scalability. to accommodate the applied in-plane tensile loading. Three representative 3D designs were chosen: a sinusoidal structure ■ RESULTS AND DISCUSSION which corresponds to stretchable out-of-plane wrinkle − The fabrication approach takes advantage of the versatility and structures46 48, a U-shaped structure and a horseshoe-shaped scalability of the PμSL-based 3D printing process to realize any structure, which have been demonstrated to be highly desired 3D circuit layouts even for very complex systems. stretchable in 2D forms.22,49,50 The strain distributions of the Figure 1 illustrates the overall four steps for creating three structures under the same large tensile strain (40%) are given in Figure 2a−c for comparison. Since the maximum strain all occurs at the polymer template surface, it also directly affects the resistance of the coated conductive films. In fact, the metal films deposited in our following experiments are merely tens of nanometers thick, whereas the polymer template has a width (denoted by w in Figure S1a) of around 70 μm, about a thousand time of the metal film thickness. Therefore, the presence of the metal film has a marginal effect on the mechanical properties and deformation process of the polymer structures. It thus can be inferred that the strain distribution of coated metal films approximates the surface strain distribution of the polymer template without coating, if no cracks or debonding happens. In conclusion, the horseshoe-shaped design outperforms the other two by reducing the maximum strain of the sinusoidal design by 53% and U-shaped design by 13%, showing the strongest ability to accommodate large stretching strains. See Supporting Information 1 for the details regarding the geometrical design and deformation distribution of the three structures. The stretchability of the horseshoe- shaped structure with varying geometric parameters was further investigated by an analytical approach (Supporting Information 2). Besides, the tensile load versus strain curves Figure 1. Fabrication process of the stretchable and flexible were also resulted (Figure 2d) by FEA and the horseshoe- electronics based on PμSL 3D printing. (a) 3D geometrical design shaped structure was demonstrated to be the softest design, for mechanical and electrical optimization assisted by FEA. (b) μ which is desirable for developing soft electronics. Schematic illustration of P SL-based 3D printing of the optimal CAD Therefore, the horseshoe-shaped microstructure was chosen models. (c) Schematic illustration of sputter coating of the 3D-printed to be the basic unit of the polymer template for constructing a polymer template with metal films to endow conductivity. (d) 3D stretchable conductor and 3D-printed out. After coating Assembly with LED components and application of the stretchable fi circuits on a human finger. The scale bar of the inset is 3 mm. with thin Au (thickness: 60 nm) lms, the deformation process of the conductive structure was investigated by in situ SEM tensile experiments, as shown in