Micro-and Nano-structure And Application In Flexible Electronics Of Metallic Glass

The past decade has witnessed flourish of flexible electronics as they can be used in intelligent robots,biomimetic prosthetics,health care,electronic textiles and so on.Metallic glass,rapidly quenched from its melt state,keeps good conductivity of alloys and the amorphous atomic structure endow it with surperb mechanical and thermal properties.Here we combine two vigorous area together,and explore the application of metallic glass in flexible devices,including:We developed flexible strain sensor based on the Zr₅₅Cu₃₀Ni₅Al₁₀ metallic glass thin film which we name metallic glass skin（MG-skin）.The metallic glass skin,synthesized by ion beam deposition,exhibits piezoresistance effects with a high gauge factor,a large detectable strain range,and good conductivity.Compared to other e-skin materials,MG-skin also exhibits extremely low temperature coefficient of resistance,distinct antibacterial behavior,excellent reproducibility and repeatability,nearly perfect linearity,low manufacturing cost,and negligible energy consumption,all of which are required for electronic skin for practical applications.Metallic glass is a kind of promising strain-sensing materials in wearable devices.In order to accompany the movements of the human body,we made periodic and crumpled metallic glass nanostructures that can accommodate a large amount of stretching.The ultra-stretchable metallic glass nanostructure is achieved by depositing metallic glass thin film on pre-strained substrate.We demonstrate that the morphologies and characteristic length scale can be well controlled.The nanostructures can be stretched to a strain of～100%,leading to broadly tunable properties.The approach is not limited to specific metallic glasses,but is applicable to a wide range of glass-forming alloys.Based on ultra-stretchable metallic glass nanostructures,we achieved metallic glass electrode（MG-electrode）.Shrinking substrates with pre-strain,we significantly improve the stretchability of MG film.By deposing another MG film to fix cracks,we get uniaxial MG-electrode with knots as mediates connecting conducting paths.Unixial MG-electrode has a high transparency while MG-electrode achieved by biaxial folding owns better conductivity.Comparing with other electrodes,MG-electrode exhibits excellent corrosion resistance behavior which may board its usage in harsh environment.And easy,low cost and large area fabricating also endow it with more competitiveness in flexible and stretchable electronics.