Virginia Tech Mechanical Engineering | Page 19

MOMENTUM • VIRGINIA TECH MECHANICAL ENGINEERING 19
Post-doctoral fellow Ravi Tutika tests a self-healing circuit in the Soft Materials and Structures Lab .
“ To make circuits , we introduced a scalable approach through embossing , which allows us to rapidly create tunable circuits by selectively connecting droplets ,” postdoctoral researcher and first author Ravi Tutika said . “ We can then locally break the droplets apart to remake circuits and can even completely dissolve the circuits to break all the connections to recycle the materials , and then start back at the beginning .”
The circuits are soft and flexible , like skin , continuing to work even under extreme damage . If a hole is punched in these circuits , the metal droplets can still transfer power . Instead of cutting the connection completely as in the case of a traditional wire , the droplets make new connections around the hole to continue passing electricity .
The circuits will also stretch without losing their electrical connection , as the team pulled the device to over 10 times its original length without failure during the research .
At the end of a product ’ s life , the metal droplets and the rubbery materials can be reprocessed and returned to a liquid solution , effectively making them recyclable . From that point , they can be remade to start a new life , an approach that offers a pathway to sustainable electronics .
While a stretchy smartphone has not yet been made , rapid development in the field also holds promise for wearable electronics and soft robotics . These emerging technologies require soft , robust circuitry to make the leap into consumer applications .
“ We ’ re excited about our progress and envision these materials as key components for emerging soft technologies ,” Bartlett said . “ This work gets closer to creating soft circuitry that could survive in a variety of real-world applications .”