Stretching Silicon...

Courtesy: M M Hussain

A new way to stretch single-crystal silicon (which is a rigid, brittle, material) to 10 times its original length without using a polymer support has been developed by researchers at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia. The feat will be an important step towards making stretchable and foldable electronics and photovoltaics, as well as structures like “smart skin” for robotics applications and biomedical sensors.

Inorganic single-crystal silicon is the basic building block of around 90% of all modern technology but it is intrinsically brittle and rigid and so cannot be stretched without mounting it on a polymer support first. And even in this case, it can only be stretched to about 3.5 times its original length. This means that silicon can not easily be used in flexible electronics – an area that is becoming more and more important with the advent of the “Internet of Things”, wearable electronics and novel applications like electronic paper-like displays and artificial skin.

A team led by Muhammad Hussain has now succeeded in fabricating a single-crystal silicon network of hexagonal islands connected through spiral springs that can be stretched to 10 times its original length and 30 times its original surface area. The technique might be applied to other inorganic semiconductor-based electronic materials too, says Hussain.

Nanotech Web: Silicon Gets Stretched