Themed collection Materials chemistry in flexible electronics

Guest editors Xiaodong Chen, John A. Rogers, Stéphanie P. Lacour, Wenping Hu, and Dae-Hyeong Kim introduce the Materials chemistry in flexible electronics themed issue of Chemical Society Reviews.

Stretchable conductors developed through structural and materials engineering are contributing to the realization of next-generation soft electronic devices for healthcare and soft-robotics.

Thermally drawn multimaterial fibers were leveraged as multifunctional optoelectronic probes of neural activity and development.

Printed ferroelectric devices are ideal candidates for self-powered and multifunctional sensor skins, contributing to a sustainable smart future.

The development of intrinsically stretchable electronics poses great challenges in synthesizing elastomeric conductors, semiconductors and dielectric materials.

This review describes recent developments in the field of conductive nanomaterials and their application in 2D and 3D printed flexible electronics, with particular emphasis on inks based on metal nanoparticles and nanowires, carbon nanotubes, and graphene sheets.

This article reviews the cascade strategy of stretchable conductive nanocomposites where various filler materials are processed for stretchable electronic applications.

This review covers the latest research progress of “softening” gold materials for various applications in elastronics.

Hydrogels have emerged as a promising bioelectronic interfacing material. This review discusses the fundamentals and recent advances in hydrogel bioelectronics.

This review presents a timely and comprehensive summary of organic and hybrid materials for nonvolatile resistive switching memory applications in the “More than Moore” era, with particular attention on their designing principles for electronic property tuning and flexible memory performance.

Highly ordered organic crystalline materials provide an ideal platform for next-generation flexible electronics.

Colloidal nanocrystals are dispersed in solvent forming “inks” for the solution-based fabrication of flexible nanocrystal electronics.

A critical analysis of the molecular design strategies employed in the recent progress of non-fullerene electron acceptors for organic photovoltaics.

Wearable/flexible chemical sensors enable continuous molecular monitoring and provide an individual's dynamic health information at the molecular level.

The tutorial aims to equip the beginners in silicone research with the knowledge to formulate recipes and process elastomer networks, targeting specific properties related to soft applications such as stretchable electronics without compromising the mechanical integrity of the elastomer.

Through molecular and structural design, proactively modulated mechano-adaptable devices are shedding light on the next generation of intelligent flexible devices.