Room-Temperature Liquid Metals for Soft, Stretchable Electronics

Friday April 1st, 2022 in Hand 1144

Abstract: Advances in soft robotics and stretchable electronics have the potential to cause a paradigm shift in the fields of human-machine interaction, robotic locomotion, and sensing.  The materials needed to achieve truly practical, soft and stretchable devices are not yet available. The use of liquid metals, such as the eutectic gallium-indium-tin (galinstan), is one strategy to create inherently deformable materials. In the Koh lab, we begin with the fundamental building blocks of electronics with a specific focus on capacitors and resistors.  Mechanically and electrically tunable dielectric materials for soft capacitors have the potential to improve responsive electronics, robotic actuation, and physiological, biological, and environmental sensing.  Toward this goal, dispersions of galinstan in a soft polymer continuous matrix have been found to form excellent dielectric composites.  Through the careful choice of the polymer and simple formulation/design parameters, a dielectric material, and thus capacitor, can be designed with an enormous range in modulus as well as permittivity values approaching those of simple ceramics.  The lab continues to build on this work by understanding the fundamental rheological relationships that result from a liquid metal encased in a thin solid shell, composed of spontaneously forming metal oxides, dispersed in a viscoelastic polymer. Ongoing research spans fundamental investigation into the design rules governing mechanical, electrical, and interfacial properties to full implementation of liquid metal polymer composites in wearable devices and human-machine interfaces. Additionally, the scalable manufacture of these composites, and other liquid metal electronic components to improve the materials for soft robotics and sensing, continues to be a focus for the lab including 3D printing and extrusion.

Bio: Amanda Koh is an Assistant Professor in the Chemical and Biological Engineering Department at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, AL.  Her work focuses on material composites and material composite interfaces for soft robotics and stretchable electronics, smart/active materials, and porous adsorbents for pollutant capture.  Previously, she was an Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) post-doctoral fellow at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory in Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD.  She got her Ph.D. in 2016 from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY working on novel green surfactants.  She got her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2011 and is originally from New York City, NY.

Please join us for a reception with Dr. Koh at 3:00 PM in Hand 1134.
Hosted by:  Dr. Colleen Scott