Mechanically robust, electrically stable metal arrays on plasma-oxidized polydimethylsiloxane for stretchable technologies

Certain applications of evolving flexible technologies demand that metallic features remain both mechanically robust (crack-free) and electrically stable for large macroscopic mechanical deformation. Examples of this are flexible radio frequency transmission line technologies and soft metamaterials where electromagnetic properties (e.g., functionality and losses), which rely on the integrity of metallic features, are highly sensitive to shape and resistance variation. In this context, we demonstrate here the ability to deposit crack-free chromium/gold metallized mesa structures on polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) substrates using thermal evaporation. In order to achieve this, the PDMS is exposed to an optimized oxygen plasma prior to the metallization. A shadow mask allowed us to define specific arrays of metallic mesa features having different sizes (100-600 mu m) and surface filling factors on plasma-treated and non-treated PDMS. In contrast to non-treated PDMS, we demonstrate for a loading strain >45% that the local metal mesa strain is <2% (crack-free) and the electrical resistance variation is <2 for plasma-treated substrates. Such a result is achieved by tailoring the filling factor and the equivalent stiffness ratio of the layers. The relationship between the filling factor, the equivalent stiffness ratio, and the local strain reduction is analytically modelled. This allows one to understand the role of the key parameters in the behavior of the overall flexible system and, in principle, to design optimized systems such as those mentioned above. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.