ABSTRACT
Highly deformable and electrically conductive fibres with multiple functionalities may be useful for diverse applications. Here we report on a supercoil structure (i.e. coiling of a coil) of fibres fabricated by inserting a giant twist into spandex-core fibres wrapped in a carbon nanotube sheath. The resulting supercoiled fibres show a highly ordered and compact structure along the fibre direction, which can sustain up to 1,500% elastic deformation. The supercoiled fibre exhibits an increase in resistance of 4.2% for stretching of 1,000% when overcoated by a passivation layer. Moreover, by incorporating pseudocapacitive-active materials, we demonstrate the existence of superelastic supercapacitors with high linear and areal capacitance values of 21.7 mF cm-1 and 92.1 mF cm-2, respectively, that can be reversibly stretched by 1,000% without significant capacitance loss. The supercoiled fibre can also function as an electrothermal artificial muscle, contracting 4.2% (percentage of loaded fibre length) when 0.45 V mm-1 is applied.
ABSTRACT
Stretchable conductors can be used in various applications depending on their own characteristics. Here, we demonstrate simple and robust elastomeric conductors that are optimized for stretchable electrical signal transmission line. They can withstand strains up to 600% without any substantial change in their resistance (≤10% as is and ≤1% with passivation), and exhibit suppressed charge fluctuations in the medium. The inherent elasticity of a polymeric rubber and the high conductivity of flexible, highly oriented carbon nanotube sheets were combined synergistically, without losing both properties. The nanoscopic strong adhesion between aligned carbon nanotube arrays and strained elastomeric polymers induces conductive wavy folds with microscopic bending of radii on the scale of a few micrometers. Such features enable practical applications such as in elastomeric length-changeable electrical digital and analog signal transmission lines at above MHz frequencies. In addition to reporting basic direct current, alternating current, and noise characterizations of the elastomeric conductors, various examples as a stretchable signal transmission line up to 600% strains are presented by confirming the capability of transmitting audio and video signals, as well as low-frequency medical signals without information distortion.
ABSTRACT
The effect of a ferroelectric polarization field on the charge transport in a two-dimensional (2D) material was examined using a graphene monolayer on a hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) field-effect transistor (FET) fabricated using a ferroelectric single-crystal substrate, (1-x)[Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3]-x[PbTiO3] (PMN-PT). In this configuration, the intrinsic properties of graphene were preserved with the use of an hBN flake, and the influence of the polarization field from PMN-PT could be distinguished. During a wide-range gate-voltage (VG) sweep, a sharp inversion of the spontaneous polarization affected the graphene channel conductance asymmetrically as well as an antihysteretic behavior. Additionally, a transition from antihysteresis to normal ferroelectric hysteresis occurred, depending on the V(G) sweep range relative to the ferroelectric coercive field. We developed a model to interpret the complex coupling among antihysteresis, current saturation, and sudden conductance variation in relation with the ferroelectric switching and the polarization-assisted charge trapping, which can be generalized to explain the combination of 2D structured materials with ferroelectrics.
