Hybrid-Microstructure-Based Soft Network Materials with Independent Tunability of Mechanical Properties over Large Deformations.

Introducing auxetic metamaterials into stretchable electronics shows promising prospects for enhancing the performance and innovating the functionalities of various devices, such as stretchable strain sensors. Nevertheless, most existing auxetics fail to meet the requirement of stretchable electronics, which typically include high mechanical flexibility and stable Poisson's ratio over large deformations. Moreover, despite being highly advantageous for application in diverse load-bearing conditions, achieving tunability of J-shaped stress-strain response independent of negative Poisson's ratio remains a significant challenge.

Iontronic Dynamic Sensor with Broad Bandwidth and Flat Frequency Response Using Controlled Preloading Strategy.

Rapid advancements in human-machine interaction and voice biometrics impose desirability on soft mechanical sensors for sensing complex dynamic signals. However, existing soft mechanical sensors mainly concern quasi-static signals such as pressure and pulsation for health monitoring, limiting their applications in emerging wearable electronics. Here, we propose a hydrogel-based soft mechanical sensor that enables recording a wide range of dynamic signals relevant to humans by combining a preloading design strategy and iontronic sensing mechanism.

Designing Hierarchical Soft Network Materials with Developable Lattice Nodes for High Stretchability.

Soft network materials (SNMs) represent one of the best candidates for the substrates and the encapsulation layers of stretchable inorganic electronics, because they are capable of precisely customizing the J-shaped stress-strain curves of biological tissues. Although a variety of microstructures and topologies have been exploited to adjust the nonlinear stress-strain responses of SNMs, the stretchability of most SNMs is hard to exceed 100%. Designing novel high-strength SNMs with much larger stretchability (e.

Enhance Fracture Toughness and Fatigue Resistance of Hydrogels by Reversible Alignment of Nanofibers.

Biological tissues, such as heart valve, tendon, etc., possess excellent mechanical properties, which arises from their inherent anisotropic arrangement of soft and hard phases. Inspired by the anisotropic structures, many methods have been developed to synthesize hydrogels that can achieve mechanical properties comparable to biological tissues.

Photoelastic Organogel with Multiple Stimuli Responses.

The photoelastic effect has many uses in mechanics today, but it is usually disregarded in flexible materials. Using 2-phenoxyethyl acrylate as a monomer and 4-cyano-4'-pentylbiphenyl (5CB) as a solvent, a multiple responsive photoelastic organogel (PO) with strong birefringence but low modulus is created. 5CB is a liquid crystal molecule that does not participate in the polymerization process and is always present as tiny molecules in the polymer.

Phase-locked constructing dynamic supramolecular ionic conductive elastomers with superior toughness, autonomous self-healing and recyclability.

Stretchable ionic conductors are considerable to be the most attractive candidate for next-generation flexible ionotronic devices. Nevertheless, high ionic conductivity, excellent mechanical properties, good self-healing capacity and recyclability are necessary but can be rarely satisfied in one material. Herein, we propose an ionic conductor design, dynamic supramolecular ionic conductive elastomers (DSICE), via phase-locked strategy, wherein locking soft phase polyether backbone conducts lithium-ion (Li) transport and the combination of dynamic disulfide metathesis and stronger supramolecular quadruple hydrogen bonds in the hard domains contributes to the self-healing capacity and mechanical versatility.

A double-network strategy for the tough tissue adhesion of hydrogels with long-term stability under physiological environment.

Achieving tough and stable tissue adhesion under a physiological environment is of great significance for the clinical applications of hydrogel adhesives. The current tough hydrogel adhesives face challenges in the preservation of the maximal adhesion for a long time due to swelling. Here, we propose a double-network strategy for tough tissue adhesion by a hydrogel with long-term stability under a physiological environment.

Topoarchitected polymer networks expand the space of material properties.

Many living tissues achieve functions through architected constituents with strong adhesion. An Achilles tendon, for example, transmits force, elastically and repeatedly, from a muscle to a bone through staggered alignment of stiff collagen fibrils in a soft proteoglycan matrix. The collagen fibrils align orderly and adhere to the proteoglycan strongly.

Hydrogel-mesh composite for wound closure.

During operations, surgical mesh is commonly fixed on tissues through fasteners such as sutures and staples. Attributes of surgical mesh include biocompatibility, flexibility, strength, and permeability, but sutures and staples may cause stress concentration and tissue damage. Here, we show that the functions of surgical mesh can be significantly broadened by developing a family of materials called hydrogel-mesh composites (HMCs).

Toughening Mechanism of Unidirectional Stretchable Composite.

Composite materials have been long developed to improve the mechanical properties such as strength and toughness. Most composites are non-stretchable which hinders the applications in soft robotics. Recent papers have reported a new design of unidirectional soft composite with superior stretchability and toughness.

Nonlinear photoelasticity of rubber-like soft materials: comparison between theory and experiment.

Photoelasticity often refers to the birefringence effect of materials induced by elastic deformation. Recently, many experiments on the photoelasticity of soft materials have been reported. However, the experimental results are mainly qualitative observations and lack any theoretical analysis.

Highly Stretchable and Transparent Ionic Conductor with Novel Hydrophobicity and Extreme-Temperature Tolerance.

Highly stretchable and transparent ionic conducting materials have enabled new concepts of electronic devices denoted as iontronics, with a distinguishable working mechanism and performances from the conventional electronics. However, the existing ionic conducting materials can hardly bear the humidity and temperature change of our daily life, which has greatly hindered the development and real-world application of iontronics. Herein, we design an ion gel possessing unique traits of hydrophobicity, humidity insensitivity, wide working temperature range (exceeding 100°C, and the range covered our daily life temperature), high conductivity (10~10 S/cm), extensive stretchability, and high transparency, which is among the best-performing ionic conductors ever developed for flexible iontronics.

Hydrogel 3D printing with the capacitor edge effect.

Recent decades have seen intense developments of hydrogel applications for cell cultures, tissue engineering, soft robotics, and ionic devices. Advanced fabrication techniques for hydrogel structures are being developed to meet user-specified requirements. Existing hydrogel 3D printing techniques place substantial constraints on the physical and chemical properties of hydrogel precursors as well as the printed hydrogel structures.

Integrated Soft Ionotronic Skin with Stretchable and Transparent Hydrogel-Elastomer Ionic Sensors for Hand-Motion Monitoring.

Skin-like stretchable sensors with the flexible and soft inorganic/organic electronics have many promising potentials in wearable devices, soft robotics, prosthetics, and health monitoring equipment. Hydrogels with ionic conduction, akin to the biological skin, provide an alternative for soft and stretchable sensor design. However, fully integrated and wearable sensing skin with ionically conductive hydrogel for hand-motion monitoring has not been achieved.

Fracture Toughness and Fatigue Threshold of Tough Hydrogels.

Hydrogels of numerous chemical compositions have achieved high fracture toughness on the basis of one physical principle. As a crack advances in such a hydrogel, a polymer network of strong bonds ruptures at the front of the crack elicits energy dissipation in the bulk of the hydrogel. The constituent that dissipates energy in the bulk of the hydrogel is called a .

Super tough magnetic hydrogels for remotely triggered shape morphing.

Despite their potential in various fields such as soft robots, drug delivery and biomedical engineering, magnetic hydrogels have always been limited by their poor mechanical properties. Here a universal soaking strategy has been presented to synthesize tough magnetic nanocomposite (NC) hydrogels. We can simultaneously solve two common issues for magnetic hydrogels: the poor mechanical properties and poor distribution of magnetic particles.