Stretchable Self-Healing Materials and Devices for
Soft Epidermal/Neural Prosthetic Interfaces

Sungkyunkwan University

School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering

Donghee Son Ph.D.

Self-healing chemistry has driven crucial advances in stretchable and modular electronics in recent years. Despite the advances, most studies on self-healable electrodes are based on bulk composites composed of highly viscoelastic polymers and conductive fillers, leading to poor mechanical robustness that limits their application in stretchable and wearable and even implantable electronics. Herein, we describe rational material design strategies and monolithic integration technologies for soft stretchable bioelectronics integrated with intrinsically stretchable interconnects, sensors, and display modules through an easy device assembly by transfer-printing via a self-bonding process. The self-healing bioelectronics can also be used as a sensory-neuromorphic module that is capable of optimizing its sensing capability.

Based on such materials strategy, soft self-healing neuroprosthetics capable of monitoring sensory signals and delivering feedback motor information have pursued the perfect replacement for damaged nerves. The neuroprosthetics can prevent its electrical degradation induced by repetitive deformation owing to unique mechanical properties: i) spontaneous rearrangement of Au nanoshell-coated Ag flakes dispersed in a self-healing polymer and ii) dynamic stress relaxation of the electronic epineurium enabling its mechanical adaptation to nerve modulus. Our self-healing technology proves the great potential of robust epidermal/neural prosthetic applications.