Chinese researchers have developed a conductive carbon material that folds more than a million times without damaging its structure, according to a research article recently published in the international scientific journal "Material".
The research indicated that flexible electronics and wearable devices have become hot research areas, indicating that foldable phones available in the market use only one rotary axis, which causes the failure to achieve random folding functions, and some wearable electronic devices inevitably face the problem of short life. Default caused by repeated folding.
The researchers from Tongji University designed this carbon material by inspired by the work of the silkworm, as the developed material can remarkably withstand one million folds without damaging its structure or causing fluctuations in the conduction process.
They show that structures that feature suitable pores, non-tangled junctions, slipable nanofibers, detachable layers and a compressible mesh, can act synergistically to generate a structure that folds when wrinkled.