Junghwan Byun

Negatively Strain-Dependent Electrical Resistance of Magnetically Arranged Nickel Composites: Application to Highly Stretchable Electrodes and Stretchable Lighting Devices

A novel property of the negatively strain-dependent electrical resistance change of nickel conductive composites is presented. The composite shows negatively strain-dependent resistance change when magnetically arranged, while most conductive materials show opposite behavior. This negative dependency is utilized to produce highly stretchable electrodes and to demonstrate a new conceptual resolution-sustainable stretchable lighting/display device.

Fully printable, strain-engineered electronic wrap for customizable soft electronics

Rapid growth of stretchable electronics stimulates broad uses in multidisciplinary fields as well as industrial applications. However, existing technologies are unsuitable for implementing versatile applications involving adaptable system design and functions in a cost/time-effective way because of vacuum-conditioned, lithographically-predefined processes. Here, we present a methodology for a fully printable, strain-engineered electronic wrap as a universal strategy which makes it more feasible to implement various stretchable electronic systems with customizable layouts and functions. The key aspects involve inkjet-printed rigid island (PRI)-based stretchable platform technology and corresponding printing-based automated electronic functionalization methodology, the combination of which provides fully printed, customized layouts of stretchable electronic systems with simplified process. Specifically, well-controlled contact line pinning effect of printed polymer solution enables the formation of PRIs with tunable thickness; and surface strain analysis on those PRIs leads to the optimized stability and device-to-island fill factor of strain-engineered electronic wraps. Moreover, core techniques of image-based automated pinpointing, surface-mountable device based electronic functionalizing, and one-step interconnection networking of PRIs enable customized circuit design and adaptable functionalities. To exhibit the universality of our approach, multiple types of practical applications ranging from self-computable digital logics to display and sensor system are demonstrated on skin in a customized form.

Revisit to three-dimensional percolation theory: Accurate analysis for highly stretchable conductive composite materials

A percolation theory based on variation of conductive filler fraction has been widely used to explain the behavior of conductive composite materials under both small and large deformation conditions. However, it typically fails in properly analyzing the materials under the large deformation since the assumption may not be valid in such a case. Therefore, we proposed a new three-dimensional percolation theory by considering three key factors: nonlinear elasticity, precisely measured strain-dependent Poisson’s ratio, and strain-dependent percolation threshold. Digital image correlation (DIC) method was used to determine actual Poisson’s ratios at various strain levels, which were used to accurately estimate variation of conductive filler volume fraction under deformation. We also adopted strain-dependent percolation threshold caused by the filler re-location with deformation. When three key factors were considered, electrical performance change was accurately analyzed for composite materials with both isotropic and anisotropic mechanical properties.

Electronic skins for soft, compact, reversible assembly of wirelessly activated fully soft robots

A skin-like driving system enables compact and reversible assembly of wirelessly activated, fully soft robots. Designing softness into robots holds great potential for augmenting robotic compliance in dynamic, unstructured environments. However, despite the body’s softness, existing models mostly carry inherent hardness in their driving parts, such as pressure-regulating components and rigid circuit boards. This compliance gap can frequently interfere with the robot motion and makes soft robotic design dependent on rigid assembly of each robot component. We present a skin-like electronic system that enables a class of wirelessly activated fully soft robots whose driving part can be softly, compactly, and reversibly assembled. The proposed system consists of two-part electronic skins (e-skins) that are designed to perform wireless communication of the robot control signal, namely, “wireless inter-skin communication,” for untethered, reversible assembly of driving capability. The physical design of each e-skin features minimized inherent hardness in terms of thickness (<1 millimeter), weight (~0.8 gram), and fragmented circuit configuration. The developed e-skin pair can be softly integrated into separate soft body frames (robot and human), wirelessly interact with each other, and then activate and control the robot. The e-skin–integrated robotic design is highly compact and shows that the embedded e-skin can equally share the fine soft motions of the robot frame. Our results also highlight the effectiveness of the wireless inter-skin communication in providing universality for robotic actuation based on reversible assembly.

Printed cylindrical lens pair for application to the seam concealment in tiled displays

Seamless tiling of displays is one of the key enabling technologies for the next-generation large-area electronics applications. In this paper, we propose a facile method to demonstrate a seamless display using cylindrical lens pair (CLP) fabricated by dispenser printing method. Optical properties of the printed CLP and corresponding capability of concealing seam in the display are analyzed by a set of luminance simulation and measurement in terms of geometric parameters of the lens. The seamless display with an optimized CLP features a viewing angle of the seam concealment of 40°.

Artificial Soft Elastic Media with Periodic Hard Inclusions for Tailoring Strain-Sensitive Thin-Film Responses

Engineering the coupling behavior between a functional thin film and a soft substrate provides an attractive pathway for controlling various properties of thin-film materials. However, existing studies mostly rely on uniform deformation of the substrate, and the effect of well-regulated and nonuniform strain distributions on strain-sensitive thin-film responses still remains elusive. Herein, artificially strain-regulated elastic media are presented as a novel platform for tailoring strain-sensitive thin-film responses. The proposed artificial soft elastic media are composed of embedded arrays of inkjet-printed polymeric strain modulators that exhibit a high modulus contrast with respect to that of the soft matrix. This strain-modulating lattice induces spatially regulated strain distributions based on localized strain-coupling. Controlling the structural parameters and lattice configurations of the media leads to spatial modulation of the microscopically localized as well as macroscopically accumulated strain profiles. Uniform thin films coupled to these media undergo artificially tailored deformation through lattice-like strain-coupled pathways. The resulting phenomena yield programmable strain-sensitive responses such as spatial arrangement of ternary-state surface wrinkles and stepwise tuning of piezoresistive responses. This work will open a new avenue for addressing the issue of controlling strain-sensitive thin-film properties through structural engineering of artificial soft elastic media.

Two-Dimensional Thickness-Dependent Avalanche Breakdown Phenomena in MoS2 Field-Effect Transistors under High Electric Fields

As two-dimensional (2D) transition metal dichalcogenides electronic devices are scaled down to the sub-micrometer regime, the active layers of these materials are exposed to high lateral electric fields, resulting in electrical breakdown. In this regard, understanding the intrinsic nature in layer-stacked 2D semiconducting materials under high lateral electric fields is necessary for the reliable applications of their field-effect transistors. Here, we explore the electrical breakdown phenomena originating from avalanche multiplication in MoS2 field-effect transistors with different layer thicknesses and channel lengths. Modulating the band structure and bandgap energy in MoS2 allows the avalanche multiplication to be controlled by adjusting the number of stacking layers. This phenomenon could be observed in transition metal dichalcogenide semiconducting systems due to its quantum confinement effect on the band structure. The relationship between the critical electric field for avalanche breakdown and bandgap energy is well fitted to a power law curve in both monolayer and multilayer MoS2.