Highly Stretchable Sound-in-Display Electronics Based on Strain-Insensitive Metallic Nanonetworks

The growing importance of human-machine interfaces and the rapid expansion of the internet of things (IoT) have inspired the integration of displays with sound generation systems to afford stretchable sound-in-display devices and thus establish human-to-machine connections via auditory system visualization. Herein, the synchronized generation of sound and color is demonstrated for a stretchable sound-in-display device with electrodes of strain-insensitive silver nanowires (AgNWs) and emissive layers of field-induced inorganic electroluminescent (EL) phosphors. In this device, EL phosphors embedded in a dielectric elastomer actuator (DEA) emit light under alternating-current bias, while audible sound waves are simultaneously generated via DEA actuation along with input sound signals. The electroluminescence and sound-generation performances of the fabricated device are highly robust and reliable, being insensitive to stretch-release cycling because of the presence of the AgNW stretchable electrodes. The presented principle of integrating light emission and acoustic systems in a single stretchable device can be further expanded to realize sound-in-display electronics for IoT and human-machine interface applications.