Highly conductive, printable and stretchable composite films of carbon nanotubes and silver

highly conductive, printable and stretchable hybrid composites composed of micrometre-sized silver flakes and multiwalled carbon nanotubes decorated with self-assembled silver nanoparticles. The nanotubes were used as one-dimensional, flexible and conductive scaffolds to construct effective electrical networks among the silver flakes. The nanocomposites, which included polyvinylidenefluoride copolymer, were created with a hot-rolling technique, and the maximum conductivities of the hybrid silver–nanotube composites were 5,710 S cm 21 at 0% strain and 20 S cm 21 at 140% strain, at which point the film ruptured. Three-dimensional percolation theory reveals that Poisson’s ratio for the composite is a key parameter in determining how the conductivity changes upon stretching. Useful combinations of conductivity and stretchability have been observed in vertically aligned multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWNT) forest/polyurethane films (� 0.5–1 S cm 21 at 0% strain and electrical resistance increased upon stretching 12 ) and in textiles