“Stretchable Silicon” Wired Sensor Networks For Smart Materials

摘要

We present a technique to realize very dense and cost-effective networks of high-performance sensors from monolithic silicon that can be deployed on the centimeter to meter-scale.The two-dimensional network is entirely processed in a semiconductor foundry before it is “stretched” to the target size and “cut” to the right shape.The stretchability of the monolithic silicon membrane is achieved by micropatterning the silicon such that the maximum local strain remains <2%,well below the yield strain of monocrystaline silicon.Our technique combines the maturity of semiconductor foundry fabrication techniques with the ability to realize a fully interconnected,rugged 2D sensor network of arbitrary size and shape.Because of the small feature sizes of the sensor networks(～100μm)they can be seamlessly integrated into structural materials to realize truly smart materials.