Screen-Printing Fabrication and Characterization of Stretchable Electronics

This article focuses on the fabrication and characterization of stretchable interconnects for wearable electronics applications. Interconnects were screen-printed with a stretchable silver-polymer composite ink on 50-mu m thick thermoplastic polyurethane. The initial sheet resistances of the manufactured interconnects were an average of 36.2 m Omega/square, and half the manufactured samples withstood single strains of up to 74%. The strain proportionality of resistance is discussed, and a regression model is introduced. Cycling strain increased resistance. However, the resistances here were almost fully reversible, and this recovery was time-dependent. Normalized resistances to 10%, 15%, and 20% cyclic strains stabilized at 1.3, 1.4, and 1.7. We also tested the validity of our model for radio-frequency applications through characterization of a stretchable radio-frequency identification tag.