Highly stretchable and room-temperature self-healing sheath-core structured composite fibers for ultrasensitive strain sensing and visual thermal management

Highly stretchable and self-healing wearable electronics for strain sensing and Joule heating are highly desirable for future emerging applications of wearable devices, smart robots, human-machine interface and artificial intelligence, etc. Herein, the highly stretchable and room-temperature self-healing sheath-core structured composite fibers are fabricated via the feasible in-situ polymerization modification followed by electroless silver-plating approach. Benefitting from the simultaneous incorporation of dual dynamic reversible chemical networks and construction of sheath-core structures, the composite fibers show ultrasensitive strain sensing and visual thermal management performances with excellent room-temperature self-healing capacity at ultralow Ag loadings. The composite fibers after cutting and self-healing also exhibit outstanding strain sensing performances with a high gauge factor (GF) of 64.0 and visual thermal management performances with tailorable Joule heating temperatures. Furthermore, they possess excellent working stability and reliability in practical applications of human motion detection and personal thermal management. This work demonstrates the fabrication of highly stretchable and room-temperature self-healing composite fibers for next-generation wearable devices, smart robots, human-machine interface and artificial intelligence, etc.