Highly Stretchable Semiconducting Aerogel Films for High-Performance Flexible Electronics

Highly stretchable aerogel films are attractive for advanced next-generation stretchable electronics. However, it is a great challenge to achieve high stretchability for aerogel films. Here, several types of unprecedented ultra-stretchable semiconducting polymer-based aerogel films with crimpled porous structures are developed via crosslinking and template methods combined with uniaxial and biaxial pre-stretching strategies. The semiconducting aerogel films obtained by uniaxial pre-stretching exhibit ultrahigh stretchability up to 100-200%, while those obtained by biaxial pre-stretching show high biaxial stretchability up to 50%. The resulting aerogel films show strain-insensitive electrical and joule heating properties. A prototype of the aerogel film-based stretchable organic electrochemical transistor (OECT) is developed for the first time. Benefiting from their unique porous structures, the aerogel film-based OECTs exhibit enhanced on/off ratio and transconductance compared with corresponding dense film-based OECTs, high stretchability up to 100%, and high stretching stability with 10 000 stretching cycles under 30% strain. It is demonstrated that the aerogel film-based OECTs can be applied as high-performance stretchable artificial synapses and biosensors. This work gives a versatile strategy toward highly stretchable aerogel films promising for flexible electronics. Novel ultra-stretchable semiconducting aerogel films with crimpled porous structures are developed via crosslinking and template methods combined with uniaxial and biaxial pre-stretching strategies. The aerogel-based organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) exhibit enhanced transconductance compared with dense film-based OECTs, high stretchability of up to 100%, and high stretching stability. The novel OECTs can be applied as high-performance stretchable artificial synapses and biosensors. image