MICAtronics utilizes mica substrate to make flexible devices with van der Waals epitaxy 23, 24, 25, 26. For flexible optoelectronic applications, there have been much efforts to increase the flexibility of brittle indium tin oxide (ITO) 20, 21, 22 however, these methods included complicated and high-priced processes. This approach yet required flexible electronic materials and was difficult to be applied in current electronic device fabrications.
In other studies, a soft material was sandwiched between relatively stiff materials, so that the soft layer can reduce the surface strain 19. In addition, their approach was to place the device on the neutral plane accurately, which is difficult to be adopted in multilayer structure. However, this methodology has focused on embedding active components between polymeric materials with a proper thickness and Young’s modulus. Researchers also studied the use of conventional materials in flexible electronic devices by manipulating the location of neutral plane with additional layers on top 15, 16, 17, 18. However, these approaches resulted in inferior performance, productivity and process compatibility, compared to the brittle conventional materials. Other researchers have attempted to improve mechanical tolerance by designing a new structure with brittle materials silver nanowires 7, 8, conductor mesh 9, 10 and multi-layer electrodes 11, 12, 13, 14 are typical examples of this approach. Numerous novel materials such as graphene 2, 3, carbon nanotube 4, 5, and conductive polymers 6 were developed to be intrinsically unaffected by deformation. In this regard, it is essential to pave the way to manufacture flexible electronic components that are tolerable against mechanical strain for flexible devices. Since conventional electronic materials, which are typically metals and ceramics, are brittle, their electronic/optical properties deteriorate with a certain amount of strain. For flexible electronics, materials must be capable of maintaining their properties after bending or folding. Flexible electronic devices such as wearable sensors and flexible displays are emerging as they pioneer a new market with novel form factors 1.
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