Structured Silicon for Revealing Transient and Integrated Signal Transductions in Microbial Systems

Abstract

This paper describes a simple method to fabricate soft circuit boards, antennas, and conductive paths composed of liquid metal nanoparticles embedded in an elastomeric matrix. These films of nanoparticles become electrically conductive after applying localized pressure that merges the particles together to form conductive traces. Two concepts motivate this work: (1) The ability to create an analog of circuit boards out of soft materials, which offers a route to connect circuit elements for unconventional electronics and (2) the ability to “draw” antennas to a desired geometry on demand, which is appealing for customizing communication devices on the fly.