Stretchable electronics: recent progress in the preparation of stretchable and self-healing semiconducting conjugated polymers

With the recent development of printable organic electronics and flexible devices, new strategies are developed and investigated to design conjugated semiconducting polymers with innovative properties such as molecular stretchability and self-healing. This review covers the most recent progress in the preparation of these new materials, with a special emphasis on non-covalent dynamic bonding and other key design elements to achieve such properties in conjugated systems. New strategies and recent developments in high performance fully stretchable organic devices are also discussed. In contrast to previously reported review articles on stretchable electronics, this review focuses on the chemistry of the semiconductors and emphasizes the importance of chemical design in conjugated polymers for achieving stretchability and self-healing capabilities.