Researchers from North Carolina State University developed the next generation of wires which can be stretched up to eight times its original length and still function, according to Science Daily.
Researchers started making these wires using a custom elastic polymer tube and filled it with liquid metal alloy of gallium and indium, which acts as a conductor of electricity. The wires can be commonly used in the making of head phones, phone charges and also be very useful in electronic textiles.
"Previous efforts to create stretchable wires focus on embedding metals or other electrical conductors in elastic polymers, but that creates a trade-off," said Dr. Michael Dickey, an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at NC State and co-author of a paper on the research, according to Science Daily.
Dickey learned the technique to improve the elasticity and conductivity for better performance of the wires.
"Increasing the amount of metal improves the conductivity of the composite, but diminishes its elasticity," Dickey said. "Our approach keeps the materials separate, so you have maximum conductivity without impairing elasticity. In short, our wires are orders of magnitude more stretchable than the most conductive wires, and at least an order of magnitude more conductive than the most stretchable wires currently in the literature."
Dickey also addressed the importance of knowing how to minimize the leakage of the metal if the wires are detached. The paper "Ultrastretchable Fibers with Metallic Conductivity Using a Liquid Metal Alloy Core," is also published in an online journal Advanced Functional Materials. The research was funded by a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER award and the NSF's Research Triangle Materials Research Science & Engineering Center, according to Science Daily.
