Self-healing Interconnects with Nearly Plastic Stretching of Repairs

The weakest link: Flexible electronics are an exciting prospect, but reliability in their connections is crucial to real-world deployment. Using a dispersion of conductive particles in an insulating fluid, researchers discuss the physics and engineering behind self-healing interconnects in which repair is automatically triggered upon the development of an open-circuit fault. Healed spots possessing metallic conductivity and nearly plastic stretchability are demonstrated. This work promises self-healing stretchable interconnects to improve circuit reliability.