Abstract
Efforts to impart elasticity and multifunctionality in nanocomposites focus mainly on integrating polymeric1,2 and nanoscale3,4,5 components. Yet owing to the stochastic emergence and distribution of strain-concentrating defects and to the stiffening of nanoscale components at high strains, such composites often possess unpredictable strain–property relationships. Here, by taking inspiration from kirigami—the Japanese art of paper cutting—we show that a network of notches6,7,8 made in rigid nanocomposite and other composite sheets by top-down patterning techniques prevents unpredictable local failure and increases the ultimate strain of the sheets from 4 to 370%. We also show that the sheets’ tensile behaviour can be accurately predicted through finite-element modelling. Moreover, in marked contrast to other stretchable conductors3,4,5, the electrical conductance of the stretchable kirigami sheets is maintained over the entire strain regime, and we demonstrate their use to tune plasma-discharge phenomena. The unique properties of kirigami nanocomposites as plasma electrodes open up a wide range of novel technological solutions for stretchable electronics and optoelectronic devices, among other application possibilities.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$259.00 per year
only $21.58 per issue
Rent or buy this article
Prices vary by article type
from$1.95
to$39.95
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Khang, D-Y. et al. Molecular scale buckling mechanics in individual aligned single-wall carbon nanotubes on elastomeric substrates. Nano Lett. 8, 124–130 (2008).
Sekitani, T. et al. A rubberlike stretchable active matrix using elastic conductors. Science 321, 1468–1472 (2008).
Zhang, Y. et al. Polymer-embedded carbon nanotube ribbons for stretchable conductors. Adv. Mater. 22, 3027–3031 (2010).
Chun, K-Y. et al. Highly conductive, printable and stretchable composite films of carbon nanotubes and silver. Nature Nanotech. 5, 853–857 (2010).
Kim, Y. et al. Stretchable nanoparticle conductors with self-organized conductive pathways. Nature 500, 59–64 (2013).
Fratzl, P. & Weinkamer, R. Nature’s hierarchical materials. Prog. Mater. Sci. 52, 1263–1334 (2007).
Cranford, S. W., Tarakanova, A., Pugno, N. M. & Buehler, M. J. Nonlinear material behaviour of spider silk yields robust webs. Nature 482, 72–76 (2012).
Meyers, M., McKittrick, J. & Chen, P. Structural biological materials: Critical mechanics–materials connections. Science 339, 773–779 (2013).
Lee, P. et al. Highly stretchable or transparent conductor fabrication by a hierarchical multiscale hybrid nanocomposite. Adv. Funct. Mater. 24, 5671–5678 (2014).
Khayer Dastjerdi, A., Rabiei, R. & Barthelat, F. The weak interfaces within tough natural composites: Experiments on three types of nacre. J. Mech. Behav. Biomed. Mater. 19, 50–60 (2013).
Tang, Z., Kotov, N. A., Magonov, S. & Ozturk, B. Nanostructured artificial nacre. Nature Mater. 2, 413–418 (2003).
Barthelat, F. & Rabiei, R. Toughness amplification in natural composites. J. Mech. Phys. Solids 59, 829–840 (2011).
Bauer, J., Hengsbach, S., Tesari, I., Schwaiger, R. & Kraft, O. High-strength cellular ceramic composites with 3D microarchitecture. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 111, 2453–2458 (2014).
Mirkhalaf, M., Dastjerdi, A. K. & Barthelat, F. Overcoming the brittleness of glass through bio-inspiration and micro-architecture. Nature Commun. 5, 3166 (2014).
Kim, J. Y. & Kotov, N. A. Charge transport dilemma of solution-processed nanomaterials. Chem. Mater. 26, 134–152 (2014).
Jancar, J. et al. Current issues in research on structure-property relationships in polymer nanocomposites. Polymer 51, 3321–3343 (2010).
Liff, S. M., Kumar, N. & McKinley, G. H. High-performance elastomeric nanocomposites via solvent-exchange processing. Nature Mater. 6, 76–83 (2007).
Vaia, R. A. & Wagner, H. D. Framework for nanocomposites. Mater. Today 7, 32–37 (November, 2004).
Blees, M., Rose, P., Barnard, A., Roberts, S. & McEuen, P. L. Graphene Kirigami (2014); http://meetings.aps.org/link/BAPS.2014.MAR.L30.11
Castle, T. et al. Making the cut: Lattice kirigami rules. Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 245502 (2014).
Rossiter, J. & Sareh, S. in Proc. SPIE (ed. Lakhtakia, A.) 90550G (Bioinspiration, Biomimetics, and Bioreplication, Vol. 9055, 2014).
Qi, Z., Park, H. S. & Campbell, D. K. Highly deformable graphene kirigami. Preprint at http://arxiv.org/abs/1407.8113 (2014)
Silverberg, J. L. et al. Origami structures with a critical transition to bistability arising from hidden degrees of freedom. Nature Mater. 14, 389–393 (2015).
Mullin, T., Deschanel, S., Bertoldi, K. & Boyce, M. Pattern transformation triggered by deformation. Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 084301 (2007).
Zhang, Y. et al. One-step nanoscale assembly of complex structures via harnessing of an elastic instability. Nano Lett. 8, 1192–1196 (2008).
Zhu, J., Zhang, H. & Kotov, N. A. Thermodynamic and structural insights into nanocomposites engineering by comparing two materials assembly techniques for graphene. ACS Nano 7, 4818–4829 (2013).
Holmes, D. P. & Crosby, A. J. Snapping surfaces. Adv. Mater. 19, 3589–3593 (2007).
Kang, S. H. et al. Buckling-induced reversible symmetry breaking and amplification of chirality using supported cellular structures. Adv. Mater. 25, 3380–3385 (2013).
Paiva, M. C. et al. Mechanical and morphological characterization of polymer-carbon nanocomposites from functionalized carbon nanotubes. Carbon 42, 2849–2854 (2004).
Shim, B. S. et al. Multiparameter structural optimization of single-walled carbon nanotube stiffness, and toughness. ACS Nano 3, 1711–1722 (2009).
Acknowledgements
This project was sponsored by NSF Grant #1240264 EFRI-ODISSEI, a joint grant to all senior authors of this work. Parts of the research were also supported by the National Science Foundation, Division of Materials Research Award # DMR 1120923, and by a Simons Investigator award from the Simons Foundation to S.C.G. The authors gratefully acknowledge fruitful discussions with J. R. Barber on the analytical solution of the buckling kirigami systems. T.C.S. thanks S. R. Spurgeon for stimulating discussions, and R. Hower and H. Zhang for assistance in microfabrication. We thank H. Eberhart for his custom glass apparatus and vacuum system. This work was conducted in part in E. M. Arruda’s laboratory, the Electron Microbeam Analysis Laboratory, and the Lurie Nanofabrication Facility at the University of Michigan.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
T.C.S. carried out the experimental set-up, fabrication and measurements. P.F.D. and P.M.D. performed the finite-element modelling. A.L. performed the beam analysis, laser cutting, and the mechanical cycling experiments on Kapton structures. L.X. carried out the LBL assembly. M.Shlian contributed to fabrication and iteration of designs. M.Shtein, S.C.G., and N.A.K. supervised the work. T.C.S., P.F.D. and N.A.K. originated the study, prepared the manuscript, and all authors contributed to data interpretation, discussions and writing.
Corresponding authors
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing financial interests.
Supplementary information
Supplementary Information
Supplementary Information (PDF 656 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Shyu, T., Damasceno, P., Dodd, P. et al. A kirigami approach to engineering elasticity in nanocomposites through patterned defects. Nature Mater 14, 785–789 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4327
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4327
This article is cited by
-
An intrinsically stretchable multi-biochemical sensor for sweat analysis using photo-patternable ecoflex
npj Flexible Electronics (2023)
-
Fabrication of helix–fiber composites with mechanically coupled core-wrapping for programmable properties
Communications Materials (2023)
-
Conductive and elastic bottlebrush elastomers for ultrasoft electronics
Nature Communications (2023)
-
Bioinspired Strategies for Stretchable Conductors
Chemical Research in Chinese Universities (2023)
-
Biopolymers-based skin-interfaced triboelectric sensors
Nano Research (2023)