The new material is flexible, tough and self-healing and so it overcomes the known weaknesses of the rigid, brittle electronic materials currently used, which can't repair themselves. The DTU team combined the exceptional properties of graphene with the see-through polymer PEDOT: PSS, that is also electrically conductive and is, for example, used in flexible electronics and sometimes in transparent electrodes in solar cells. When the two are combined, they turn what's usually a weak, jellylike material into a solid, flexible, self-healing electronic material.
"The devices that exist today and have self-healing, soft, and responsive properties often fail to seamlessly integrate all these attributes into a single, scalable, and cohesive platform. And that is what I believe we have accomplished," says Alireza Dolatshahi-Pirouz, associate professor at DTU Health Tech and lead author of the recent paper. "Our skin-inspired material is multifunctional, endowed with the desired tactile properties, specifically designed for the usage of electronic devices. This may open doors to more advanced and versatile technologies that could more closely mingle with the human body and the surroundings."
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