Stretchable electronic device with repeat self-healing ability of metal wire

This paper reports a stretchable electronic device with repeat self-healing ability of a wire crack caused by stretching deformation. The crack of metal wire is healed with assembled metal nanoparticles by dielectrophoresis, when a voltage is applied to the cracked wire covered with the nanoparticle solution. By designing a circuit, we controlled the applied voltage and current for the self-healing to be avoid excessive Joule heating in the assembled nanoparticles. This consideration enables us to heal a crack of tens of micrometers in width and to practically achieve a stretchable electronic device.