Journal
JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS
Volume 26, Issue 6, Pages 1244-1247Publisher
IEEE-INST ELECTRICAL ELECTRONICS ENGINEERS INC
DOI: 10.1109/JMEMS.2017.2723628
Keywords
Liquid metal; micropatterning; eutectic gallium indium (EGaIn); microgroove; dewetting
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Funding
- National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF), Korea Government (MSIP) [2015R1A2A2A04006181]
- NRF, Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning through Basic Science Research Program [NRF-2017R1A2B3009610]
- National Research Foundation of Korea [2015R1A2A2A04006181, 22A20152813151] Funding Source: Korea Institute of Science & Technology Information (KISTI), National Science & Technology Information Service (NTIS)
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Although gallium-based liquid metals are attracting growing interest thanks to its potential applications in deformable, flexible electronic devices, challenges in fabrication associated with the high surface tension and oxide skin remain to be overcome. We report a novel fabrication technique for liquid metal circuits using dewetting. An excessively thin liquid film spontaneously shrinks on a substrate to reduce surface free energy. In the case of a thin liquid metal film on a substrate with microgrooves, the oxide on the microgroove wall and the additional viscous resistance delay the shrinkage in the grooves, which separates the liquid volume inside the microgrooves from the external volume. Utilizing this mechanism, we successfully produced 20-mu m-thick conductive lines of eutectic gallium indium (EGaIn) on polydimethylsiloxane. This fabrication technique is simple, fast, and cost-effective and requires no top covering layer. The resultant metal lines show potentially applicable electrical resistance to flexible and stretchable electronic devices. [2017-0082]
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