阅读说明：本技术 一种制备柔性电子的方法及柔性电子 (Method for preparing flexible electron and flexible electron ) 是由 马星 李国强 刘志远 张铭扬 于 2020-06-23 设计创作，主要内容包括：本发明提供了一种制备柔性电子的方法,包括以下步骤：S1、使用负压法将液态的GaIn液态金属或液态的GaInSn液态金属灌入硅胶管内；S2、将灌有液态金属的硅胶管在低温环境下进行保存,直到结晶凝固；S3、将结晶凝固的液态金属从硅胶管中取出,得到金属丝；S4、使用金属丝构建电路图案,得到目标电路；S5、使用液态硅胶封装目标电路；S6、待液态硅胶固化后,进行加热,使固态的金属丝熔化为液态,得到柔性电子。本发明还提供了一种柔性电子。本发明的有益效果是：能够简化液态金属制备柔性电子的制造工艺,提高良品率,降低成本。(The invention provides a method for preparing a flexible electronic, which comprises the following steps: s1, pouring liquid GaIn liquid metal or liquid GaInSn liquid metal into the silica gel tube by using a negative pressure method; s2, storing the silicone tube filled with the liquid metal in a low-temperature environment until crystallization and solidification; s3, taking out the crystallized and solidified liquid metal from the silicone tube to obtain a metal wire; s4, constructing a circuit pattern by using a metal wire to obtain a target circuit; s5, packaging the target circuit by using liquid silica gel; and S6, heating after the liquid silica gel is solidified, so that the solid metal wire is melted into liquid to obtain the flexible electron. The invention also provides a flexible electronic. The invention has the beneficial effects that: the manufacturing process of preparing the flexible electronic by the liquid metal can be simplified, the yield is improved, and the cost is reduced.)

1. A method of making a flexible electronic comprising the steps of:

s1, pouring liquid GaIn liquid metal or liquid GaInSn liquid metal into the silica gel tube by using a negative pressure method;

s2, storing the silicone tube filled with the liquid metal in a low-temperature environment until crystallization and solidification;

s3, taking out the crystallized and solidified liquid metal from the silicone tube to obtain a metal wire;

s4, constructing a circuit pattern by using a metal wire to obtain a target circuit;

s5, packaging the target circuit by using liquid silica gel;

and S6, heating after the liquid silica gel is solidified, so that the solid metal wire is melted into liquid to obtain the flexible electron.

2. The method of making a flexible electronic device according to claim 1, wherein: in step S1, the weight percentage of the GaIn liquid metal is between 0 and 10%, the weight percentage of the In of the GaInSn liquid metal is between 0 and 12%, and the weight percentage of the Sn of the GaInSn liquid metal is between 0 and 12%.

3. The method of making a flexible electronic device according to claim 1, wherein: in step S2, the silicone tube filled with the liquid metal is stored for 1-30 minutes at 0-196 ℃.

4. The method of making a flexible electronic device according to claim 1, wherein: in step S3, the solidified liquid metal is taken out of the silicone tube in an environment with a temperature lower than 16.8 ℃, and the taking out method includes directly taking out the solidified liquid metal from the silicone tube, or detaching the silicone tube by using a cutter.

5. The method of making a flexible electronic device according to claim 1, wherein: in step S4, the metal wire is bent in an environment at a temperature lower than 15 ℃ to construct a desired circuit pattern, both ends of the metal wire are heated to 30 to 200 ℃ for 5 to 10 seconds to melt the both ends of the metal wire by a length of 1 to 5mm, and then one end of a copper wire having a length of 20 to 50mm is inserted into the molten liquid metal, and waits for 2 to 10 minutes until it is solidified.

6. The method of making a flexible electronic device according to claim 1, wherein: in step S5, the target circuit is placed over the solid silicone layer and encapsulated with corresponding liquid silicone.

7. The method of making a flexible electronic device according to claim 1, wherein: in step S6, after the silica gel is solidified, the target circuit is heated to 30 to 200 ℃ and kept for 1 to 5 min, so that the solid metal wire is melted into a liquid state.

8. The method of making a flexible electronic device according to claim 1, wherein: in step S1, the liquid GaIn liquid metal or the liquid GaInSn liquid metal is poured into the silicone tube using a syringe.

9. A flexible electronic, characterized by: prepared by the method of any one of claims 1 to 8.

Technical Field

The present invention relates to flexible electronics, and more particularly, to a method for manufacturing a flexible electronic and a flexible electronic.

Background

The gallium-based liquid metal is the only material which has metal conductivity and fluidity at room temperature at present, theoretically, the deformation capability of the flexible electronic prepared based on the liquid metal is limited only by the elastic packaging material, and therefore the liquid metal is widely applied to the manufacturing of the flexible electronic at present.

At present, the method for preparing the flexible electron based on the liquid metal mainly comprises the following steps: (1) photoetching: the photoetching method can not directly prepare the liquid metal flexible electron, but can prepare a circuit template through photoetching and construct a circuit by combining the subsequent methods of imprinting, selective wetting and the like; (2) micro-channel injection method: the microchannel method mainly utilizes the characteristics of low viscosity and good fluidity of liquid metal, firstly, a microchannel with a certain shape is constructed in an elastomer by utilizing methods such as photoetching, and then, the liquid metal is injected into the microchannel by using an injector, and the pressure required by injecting the liquid metal into the microchannel is inversely proportional to the diameter of the channel; (3) an additive manufacturing method: the additive manufacturing method is a method for depositing liquid metal only at the position required by a circuit, and ink-jet printing is one of additive manufacturing, but the liquid metal is difficult to directly print by the traditional printing method due to the large surface tension; (4) a material reduction method: the subtractive method is a method of removing a part of material in a liquid metal thin film and leaving only a desired line pattern, and mainly includes laser etching and electrochemical oxidation-reduction.

The photolithography, the additive manufacturing method and the subtractive method can not build a circuit in the elastomer, so that the prepared liquid metal flexible electronic has no large strain capacity. The flexible electron prepared by the micro-channel injection method can bear large strain because the liquid metal is encapsulated in the elastomer, but the method needs a photoetching process to construct a channel, so that the process is complicated, the cost is high, air is easily injected into the channel in the injection process, and meanwhile, the right angle of the channel cannot be completely filled due to the large surface tension of the liquid metal, so that the yield is low, and the popularization of the commercial application of the flexible electron is limited.

Disclosure of Invention

In order to solve the problems in the prior art, the invention provides a method for preparing a flexible electron based on liquid-solid conversion characteristics of liquid metal and the flexible electron.

The invention provides a method for preparing flexible electrons based on liquid-solid conversion characteristics of liquid metal, which comprises the following steps:

s1, pouring liquid GaIn liquid metal or liquid GaInSn liquid metal into the silica gel tube by using a negative pressure method;

s2, storing the silicone tube filled with the liquid metal in a low-temperature environment until crystallization and solidification;

s3, taking out the crystallized and solidified liquid metal from the silicone tube to obtain a metal wire;

s4, constructing a circuit pattern by using a metal wire to obtain a target circuit;

s5, packaging the target circuit by using liquid silica gel;

and S6, heating after the liquid silica gel is solidified, so that the solid metal wire is melted into liquid to obtain the flexible electron.

As a further improvement of the invention, In step S1, the weight percentage of the GaIn liquid metal is between 0 and 10%, the weight percentage of the GaInSn liquid metal is between 0 and 12%, and the weight percentage of the Sn of the GaInSn liquid metal is between 0 and 12%.

As a further improvement of the invention, in step S2, the silicone tube filled with liquid metal is stored for 1-30 minutes at 0-196 ℃.

As a further improvement of the present invention, in step S3, the solidified liquid metal is taken out from the silicone tube in an environment with a temperature lower than 16.8 ℃, and the taking out method includes directly taking out the solidified liquid metal from the silicone tube, or detaching the silicone tube by using a cutter.

As a further improvement of the present invention, in step S4, the metal wire is bent in an environment at a temperature lower than 15 ℃ to construct a desired circuit pattern, both ends of the metal wire are heated to 30 to 200 ℃ for 5 to 10 seconds to melt the both ends of the metal wire by a length of 1 to 5mm, and then one end of a copper wire having a length of 20 to 50mm is inserted into the molten liquid metal, and waits for 2 to 10 minutes until it is solidified.

As a further improvement of the present invention, in step S5, the target circuit is placed over the solid silica gel layer and encapsulated with a corresponding liquid silica gel.

As a further improvement of the invention, in step S6, after the silica gel is solidified, the target circuit is heated to 30-200 ℃ and kept for 1-5 min, so that the solid metal wire is melted into liquid.

As a further improvement of the present invention, in step S1, a syringe is used to pour the liquid GaIn liquid metal or the liquid GaInSn liquid metal into the silicone tube.

The invention also provides a flexible electron which is prepared by adopting the method for preparing the flexible electron.

The invention has the beneficial effects that: by the scheme, the large supercooling degree of the liquid metal is utilized, the liquid-solid conversion method is adopted, the micro-channel is not required to be constructed in the elastomer by using the processes such as photoetching and the like, the defects of air holes and the like caused by micro-channel injection cannot exist in the liquid metal circuit channel, and the filling rate is high; the flexible electron prepared by the invention has strong adaptive deformation capability and high electrical property stability in the service process; the invention can simplify the manufacturing process of preparing the flexible electronic by the liquid metal, improve the yield and reduce the cost.

Detailed Description

The present invention will be further described with reference to the following embodiments.

The invention aims to develop a method for preparing flexible electrons by liquid-solid conversion of liquid metal by utilizing the characteristic of larger supercooling degree of the liquid metal. The liquid metal is converted into a solid state, and the flexible electronic manufacturing is carried out under the solid state condition. According to the method, the conductive circuit can be packaged in the elastic body without constructing the micro-channel by using the processes such as photoetching and the like.

A method for preparing flexible electrons based on liquid-solid conversion characteristics of liquid metal comprises the following specific steps:

1. injecting GaIn (0-10 wt%) or GaInSn (0-12 wt% In, 0-12 wt% Sn) liquid metal into a silica gel tube with the diameter of 0.05-20 mm by using a syringe extraction equal negative pressure method.

2. Preserving the silicone tube filled with the liquid metal in a low-temperature environment (0-196 ℃) for 1-30 minutes until the silicone tube is crystallized and solidified, and taking out the silicone tube;

3. because the melting temperature of the GaIn eutectic second phase is 16.8 ℃, the solidified liquid metal needs to be taken out of the silicone tube in an environment with the temperature lower than 16.8 ℃; the taking-out method comprises directly drawing out the solidified liquid metal wire from the silicone tube, or detaching the silicone tube by using a cutter; the direct extraction method is simple, convenient and quick, but when the length of the solidified liquid metal wire is more than 100mm, the structure of the metal wire can be damaged due to larger friction force in the extraction process. Therefore, when the length of the solidified liquid metal wire is more than 100mm, a cutter disassembly method is used, and when the length of the solidified liquid metal wire is less than 100mm, the metal wire is directly drawn out of the silica gel tube.

4. Bending a liquid metal wire in an environment with the temperature lower than 15 ℃ to construct a required circuit pattern, heating two ends of a wire for 5-10 s at the temperature of 30-200 ℃ to melt the wire for 1-5 mm, then inserting one end of a copper wire with the length of 20-50 mm into the molten liquid metal, and waiting for 2-10 min until the wire is solidified;

5. placing the liquid metal circuit above the silica gel layers such as solid PDMS/Ecoflex and the like and packaging by using corresponding liquid silica gel;

6. and heating the flexible device for 1-5 min at the temperature of 30-200 ℃ after the silica gel is solidified, so that the solid metal wire is melted into a liquid state.

The invention also provides a flexible electronic (such as a flexible circuit, a flexible device and the like) prepared by adopting the method for preparing the flexible electronic.

The invention utilizes the large supercooling degree of the liquid metal and adopts a liquid-solid conversion method, the method does not need to use photoetching and other processes to construct a micro-channel in the elastomer, the liquid metal circuit channel does not have the defects of air holes and the like introduced by micro-channel injection, and the filling rate can reach about 100 percent. The flexible electronic prepared by the method has strong adaptive deformation capability and high electrical property stability in the service process. The invention can simplify the manufacturing process of preparing the flexible electronic by the liquid metal, improve the yield and reduce the cost.

The invention relates to a method for preparing flexible electronics quickly and at low cost based on liquid-solid conversion characteristics of liquid metal, which can encapsulate the liquid metal in an elastomer without constructing a microchannel in the elastomer. The method has great competitive advantages in preparing liquid metal flexible wires, flexible sensors (pressure, angle, strain and other sensors), flexible antennas and the like, and can be widely applied to the fields of wearable electronic equipment, intelligent robots, medical appliances and the like.

The foregoing is a more detailed description of the invention in connection with specific preferred embodiments and it is not intended that the invention be limited to these specific details. For those skilled in the art to which the invention pertains, several simple deductions or substitutions can be made without departing from the spirit of the invention, and all shall be considered as belonging to the protection scope of the invention.