Three-Dimensional Conducting Elastomeric Composites Based on Buckling Carbon Nanotube Sheets for Interconnects and Temperature Sensor

Materials that are both conductive and elastically stretchable have attracted a great deal of interests. Here, we report on fabrication of a novel conducting elastomeric composite made by multilayer deposition of forest-drawn carbon nanotube sheets and rubber layers. The resulting composites exhibited distinct nanotube sheet buckling structure with high conductivity of 4760 S/m, nearly strainindependent electrical conductance, enabling a similar to 1% resistance change for a 400% stretch over 1000 cycles. In addition, this unique buckling nanotube/rubber composite showed extremely small changes in conductance during small radius bending, and no degradation in conductance during twisting and compressing under high mechanical pressure. A negative resistive temperature sensor based on the buckling composite was also demonstrated. These results highlight the potential for stretchable electronic applications of such composites.