Materials, Device, And Interface Engineering for Non-Conventional Electronics by Hard/Soft Material Integration

将材料与互补特性相结合为生产结构和功能材料创造了新的机会。例如，人们可以通过采用聚合物材料作为基质来实现高性能无机器件（其传统上被认为是脆性的）的机械柔性。 实现这一壮举的关键在于将微米和/或纳米尺寸的无机器件组件小心地集成到软材料基质中，同时保持优异的器件性能。 通过硬材料和软材料之间的结合，已经实现了诸如可弯曲、可折叠和可卷曲的电子器件等新颖的形状因素。 目前的创新研究阶段是可拉伸电子产品，其中神经接口，电子肌肉和能量采集器显示出巨大的潜力。 开发具有长期操作稳定性的可拉伸设备具有挑战性，因为电子器件必须承受操作期间的严重应变和体积变化。 因此，器件失效的主要原因是硬材料和软材料之间的界面处的裂纹和脱粘。 拟议DG计划的短期目标是通过控制界面处材料的形态和化学性质来防止界面处的这些机械失效模式。 这些方法来自聚合物物理学和纳米纤维学的学科，并受到生物学的启发。 我的研究小组的长期目标是设计出具有前所未有的外形的概念性新电子系统。 对新型软材料基质以及微纳米器件的独立研究也将平行进行。 DG计划的长期目标是研究操作设备和新型软材料基质之间界面处的各种现象。 从大局的角度来看，从DG计划获得的知识也将适用于广泛的工程学科，如聚合物，复合材料，MEMS，界面科学和生物电子学。 当实现系统级集成时，这些非传统的电子器件将成为新的工具，在医疗、食品工程和生物医学等领域有着广泛的应用。

Integrating materials with complementary properties have created new opportunities for producing structural and functional materials. For example, one can achieve mechanical flexibility with high-performance inorganic devices (which are traditionally thought of as brittle) by employing polymeric materials as matrices. The key to achieving this feat lays in carefully integrating micro- and/or nano-sized inorganic device components into a soft material matrix, while maintaining excellent device performance. Novel form factors, such as bendable, foldable, and rollable electronics have been realized through the marriage between hard and soft materials. The current stage of innovative research is on stretchable electronics, where neural interfaces, electronic muscles, and energy harvesters show immense potential. Developing stretchable devices with long-term operational stability is challenging because the electronics must withstand severe strain and volume change during operation. Consequently the major sources of device failure are crack and debonding at the interface between hard and soft materials. The short-term objective of the proposed DG program is to prevent these mechanical failure modes at the interface by controlling the material's morphology and chemistry at the interface. The methodologies come from the disciplines of polymer physics and nanofabrication and are inspired by biology. My research group's long-term goal is to devise conceptually new electronic systems with unprecedented form factors. Independent research on novel soft material matrices as well as micro- and nano-devices will also be performed in parallel. The long-term objective of the DG program is to study various phenomena at the interface between the operating devices and the novel soft material matrix. From a big-picture perspective, the knowledge gained from the DG program will also be applicable to wide range of engineering disciplines such as polymers, composite materials, MEMS, interface science, and bioelectronics. When system-level integration is realized, these non-conventional electronics will serve as novel tools with broad application in fields such as medical therapy, food engineering, and biomedical science.**