Journal
ACS APPLIED MATERIALS & INTERFACES
Volume 9, Issue 26, Pages 22055-22062Publisher
AMER CHEMICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.7b05522
Keywords
eutectic gallium-indium; liquid metal; conductive elastomers; anisotropic conductivity; stretchable electronics; wearable computing; biomonitoring; photonic biosensing
Funding
- NASA Early Career Faculty Award [NNX14AO49G]
- Office of Naval Research (Bioinspired Autonomous Systems) [N00014-16-2301]
- Disruptive Health Technology Institute
- ONR DURIP (Bioinspired Autonomous Systems) [N00014140778]
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When encapsulated in elastomer, micropatterned traces of Ga-based liquid metal (LM) can function as elastically deformable circuit wiring that provides mechanically robust electrical connectivity between solid-state elements (e.g., transistors, processors, and sensor nodes). However, LM-microelectronics integration is currently limited by challenges in rapid fabrication of LM circuits and the creation of vias between circuit terminals and the I/O pins of packaged electronics. In this study, we address both with a unique layup for soft-matter electronics in which traces of liquid-phase Ga In eutectic (EGaIn) are patterned with UV laser micromachining (UVLM). The terminals of the elastomer-sealed LM circuit connect to the surface mounted chips through vertically aligned columns of EGaIn-coated A.g-Fe2O3 microparticles that are embedded within an interfacial elastomer layer. The processing technique is compatible with conventional UVLM printed circuit board (PCB) prototyping and exploits the photophysical ablation of EGaIn on an elastomer substrate. Potential applications to wearable computing and biosensing are demonstrated with functional implementations in which soft-matter PCBs are populated with surface-mounted microelectronics.
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