Stretchable Low Resistance Thick Silver Electrode on Poly(dimethylsiloxane) Compliant Elastomeric Substrate

In this paper, we demonstrated a stretchable, low resistive thick silver electrode directly deposited on a roughened poly( dimethylsiloxane) ( PDMS) substrate and analyzed its surface crack evolution under the tensile stress. Improvement in the stretching property of the electrode was explained by analyzing changes in the stress distribution when the surface roughness is introduced on the PDMS substrate. It was found that the roughened surface plays two important roles of releasing the film stress of the thick electrode during the relatively long deposition process and uniformly distributing the highly stressed spots in the electrode, which can be easily damaged under the tensile strain. (C) 2010 The Japan Society of Applied Physics