A Stretchable Conductor Based on Spray-Coated Micro/Nano Scale Ag Flakes with Ultralow Resistance for Wearable Antennas

Abstract

With the rapid development of wireless communication, there are demands on the flexible antennas. In this work, a wearable dipole antenna has been fabricated by spray-coating nano/microscale Ag flakes onto the polyurethane (TPU) template. It demonstrates an ultrahigh electrical conductivity even under large deformation such as bending, twisting, folding and stretching to 170%. Thus, the resultant antenna maintains good properties under the aforementioned deformation. And even under a stretching of 50%, in contact with the body, it can still provide good antenna characteristics. We hope that our results can be adopted for adaptive skin contactable flexible antenna under different conditions, which is crucial for the next generation of wireless communication.