The next wave in electronics could be wavy electronics.
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have developed
a fully stretchable form of single-crystal silicon with micron-sized,
wave-like geometries that can be used to build high-performance electronic
devices on rubber substrates.
“Stretchable silicon offers different capabilities than can be
achieved with standard silicon chips,” said John Rogers, a professor
of materials science and engineering and co-author of a paper to appear in the journal Science, as part of
the Science Express Web site, on Dec 15.
Functional, stretchable and bendable electronics could be used in applications
such as sensors and drive electronics for integration into artificial
muscles or biological tissues, structural monitors wrapped around aircraft
wings, and conformable skins for integrated robotic sensors, said Rogers,
who is also a Founder Professor of Engineering, a researcher at the
Beckman Institute for Advanced
Science and Technology and a member of the Frederick
Seitz Materials Research Laboratory.
By
James E. Kloeppel
