IN ELECTRONICS, rigid and flat is normal. In the real world, not so much.

There are many applications in which it would be useful for electronics to conform to curvilinear surfaces or to deform with use, especially in sensing. A detector array could be made to encircle the heart, stretching with each beat. An artificial skin could be stretched around the wing of an aircraft, relaying detailed local information while in flight. An artificial retina could fit in the curved space at the back of the eye like the biological sensor it replaced. Thus far, however, flexible technologies have lacked the performance, manufacturability or, well ... flexibility to make such applications feasible.

But a new technology demonstrated at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) may be able to fill this niche--one that is certain to widen once engineers are allowed to think beyond flat and rigid. The new circuits are designed to have long, thin interconnects, fabricated using standard semiconductors (silicon, gallium arsenide and so on) and conventional techniques, and then transferred onto a stretched elastic sheet (see box below). Once the substrate is relaxed, the interconnects--which are thin enough to bend without breaking--buckle under the strain. If designed correctly, they can then buckle further if compressed or flatten if stretched. Thus, an elastic circuit fabric can be created using more-or-less ordinary electronics.

If you are a current subscriber, click here to read the entire article.

If you are NOT a current subscriber, click here to read the entire article.