Highly conductive and stretchy fibers are crucial components for smart fabrics and wearable electronics. However, most of the existing fiber conductors are strain sensitive with deteriorated conductance upon stretching, and thus, a compromised strategy via introducing merely geometric distortion of conductive path is often used for stable conductance. Here, we report a coaxial wet-spinning process for continuously fabricating intrinsically stretchable, highly conductive yet conductance-stable, liquid metal sheath-core microfibers. The microfiber can be stretched up to 1170%, and upon fully activating the conductive path, a very high conductivity of 4.35 × 104 S/m and resistance change of only 4% at 200% strain are realized, arising from both stretch-induced channel opening and stretching out of tortuous serpentine conductive path of the percolating liquid metal network. Moreover, the microfibers can be easily woven into an everyday glove or fabric, acting as excellent joule heaters, electrothermochromic displays, and self-powered wearable sensors to monitor human activities.

Conductance-stable liquid metal sheath-core microfibers for stretchy smart fabrics and self-powered sensing.

Electronic tattoos have great potential in health and movement sensing applications on the skin. However, existing electronic tattoos cannot be conformal, sticky, and multilayered at the same time. Here, we have achieved multilayered integration of the electronic tattoo that is highly stretchable (800%), conformal, and sticky. This electronic tattoo can enable the crease amplification effect, which can amplify the output signal of integrated strain sensors by three times. The tattoo can be transferred to different surfaces and form a firm attachment, where no solvent or heat is needed. The tattoo fabrication is straightforward and scalable; a layer-by-layer strategy and two materials (metal-polymer conductors and the elastomeric block copolymer) are used to fabricate the circuit module with desirable numbers of layers within the tattoo. A three-layered tattoo integrating 1 heater and 15 strain sensors is developed for temperature adjustment, movement monitoring, and remote control of robots.

Multilayered electronic transfer tattoo that can enable the crease amplification effect

Electronic skin (E-skin) is a crucial seamless human-machine interface (HMI), holding promise in healthcare monitoring and personal electronics. Liquid metal (LM) has been recognized as an ideal electrode material to fabricate E-skins. However, conventional sealed LM electrodes cannot expose the LM layer for direct contact with the skin resulting in the low performance of electrophysiological monitoring. Furthermore, traditional printed LM electrodes are difficult to transfer or recycle, and fractures easily occur under stretching of the substrate. Here, we report a kind of LM electrode that we call a kirigami-structured LM paper (KLP), which is self-supporting, conductor-exposing, stretchable, ultrathin, and recyclable for multifunctional E-skin. The KLP is fabricated by the kirigami paper cutting art with three types of structures including uniaxial, biaxial, and square spiral. The KLP can act as an E-skin to acquire high-quality electrophysiological signals, such as electroencephalogram (EEG), electrocardiogram (ECG), and electromyogram (EMG). Upon integration with a triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG), the KLP can also operate as a self-powered E-skin. On the basis of the self-powered E-skin, we further developed a smart dialing communication system, which is applied on human skin to call a cellphone. Compared with conventional sealed or printed LM electrodes, the KLP can simultaneously achieve self-supporting, conductor-exposing, stretchable, ultrathin, and recyclable features. Such KLP offers potential for E-skins in healthcare monitoring and intelligent control, as well as smart robots, virtual reality, on-skin personal electronics, etc.

A Self-Supporting, Conductor-Exposing, Stretchable, Ultrathin, and Recyclable Kirigami-Structured Liquid Metal Paper for Multifunctional E-Skin.

Eutectic gallium–indium (EGaIn), a liquid metal with a melting point close to or below room temperature, has attracted extensive attention in recent years due to its excellent properties such as fluidity, high conductivity, thermal conductivity, stretchability, self‐healing capability, biocompatibility, and recyclability. These features of EGaIn can be adjusted by changing the experimental condition, and various composite materials with extended properties can be further obtained by mixing EGaIn with other materials. In this review, not only the are unique properties of EGaIn introduced, but also the working principles for the EGaIn‐based devices are illustrated and the developments of EGaIn‐related techniques are summarized. The applications of EGaIn in various fields, such as flexible electronics (sensors, antennas, electronic circuits), molecular electronics (molecular memory, opto‐electronic switches, or reconfigurable junctions), energy catalysis (heat management, motors, generators, batteries), biomedical science (drug delivery, tumor therapy, bioimaging and neural interfaces) are reviewed. Finally, a critical discussion of the main challenges for the development of EGaIn‐based techniques are discussed, and the potential applications in new fields are prospected.

Smart Eutectic Gallium–Indium: From Properties to Applications

Self-Shaping Soft Electronics Based on Patterned Hydrogel with Stencil-Printed Liquid Metal

Liquid Metal Microparticles Phase Change Medicated Mechanical Destruction for Enhanced Tumor Cryoablation and Dual‐Mode Imaging

Electronic skin (e-skin) is attracting huge attention due to its promising applications in diverse fields, including biomimetic machines, artificial intelligence and smart robotics. However, most e-skin circuits involve complicated fabrication processes and high costs. Here, a simple, fast fabrication method for highly conductive (6 × 106 S m−1) and stretchable (above 100%) e-skin based on the adhesion selectivity of a semi-liquid metal (Cu–EGaIn) on laser printed toner and a polymethacrylate (PMA) coating is developed. The stretchable e-skin circuits are shown to transfer to human skin and 3D substrates as wearable electronics for a variety of applications, such as temperature monitoring, interactive devices, and flexible displays. Different from other liquid metal patterning techniques that require expensive equipment or rigid metal traces such as silver nanoparticles, this approach can be used to directly print Cu–EGaIn on a stretchable substrate with a commercial laser printer in seconds. Further, by virtue of the advantage of the high radiological imaging capability of Cu–EGaIn, the e-skin is patterned as a computed tomography (CT) assistant localization marker, which is demonstrated to be very helpful for doctors and surgical robots to efficiently localize a biopsy, which is a core issue in clinics. The present study holds promise for future health care, surgical guidance and personalized entertainment.

Cu–EGaIn enabled stretchable e-skin for interactive electronics and CT assistant localization

Nuclear localization and the C-terminus region of PiAVR3b from Phytophthora infestans are required for recognition by the resistance protein Rpi-R3b

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Liquid Metal Microparticles Phase Change Medicated Mechanical Destruction for Enhanced Tumor Cryoablation and Dual‐Mode Imaging

Cu–EGaIn enabled stretchable e-skin for interactive electronics and CT assistant localization

Nuclear localization and the C-terminus region of PiAVR3b from Phytophthora infestans are required for recognition by the resistance protein Rpi-R3b