Materials and mechanics for stretchable electronics - from electronic eye cameras to conformal brain monitors

This paper reviews strategies for forming high quality electronics on rubber substrates, in a manner that provides elastic responses to high strain mechanical deformations (i.e. stretchable electronics). The approaches use semiconductor nanomaterials, such as nanomembranes of single crystal silicon, in structural configurations whose geometries change continuously in response to applied strains, thereby avoiding significant strains in the materials themselves. Representative applications in devices, components and fully integrated systems, such as hemispherical electronic eye cameras, demonstrate the concepts.