Multimodal analysis of bending polymer films towards durable flexible electronics

With the rapid development of flexible electronics and soft robotics, the topic of preventing fracture in materials and devices integrated on largely bending film substrates is emerging. The high demand for strategically reducing strain in bending materials requires a facile method to accurately and precisely analyze the surface bending strain in various materials. This study reports the fundamental and efficient techniques for measuring the bending behavior of various polymer films. The fracture limit of a hard coating overlying flexible substrates is successfully determined by the accurate and precise quantification of surface bending strains. Furthermore, a multilayer film substrate with surface bending strain prevents fractures of hard coatings and organic thin film transistors.