Direct‐Ink‐Writing Printed Stretchable Eutectic Gallium–Indium Antenna for Robust Wireless Communication

Stretchable antennas represent a pivotal innovation in enhancing wireless interconnection and driving the proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) applications. Eutectic Gallium-Indium (EGaIn) is an ideal conductor for stretchable antennas. However, the inherent high surface tension and fluidity of EGaIn make the patterning low-precision, time-consuming, and failure-prone. Here a wideband stretchable antenna is presented by direct writing of thermoplastic polyurethane-modified EGaIn ink and activated by water-bath ultrasound. The ink exhibits printing-friendly rheological properties and surface energy, enabling high patterning-precision printing (10 µm) while preserving excellent conductivity (1.6 × 10<sup>6</sup> S m<sup>-1</sup>). Benefiting from these improvements, the printed antenna achieves a large fractional bandwidth (75%), a high radiation efficiency (76.6%), and an exceptional ultimate strain (> 240%). For a proof-of-concept demonstration, the antenna enables a 50-meter wireless communication, under the case of 240% stretching or conformally wrapped around a drone. This work provides an efficient and universal strategy for manufacturing stretchable antennas, with broad potential in advanced IoTs technologies.

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Publication Details

Journal
Advanced Science
Published
2025-04-02
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.202414285
Citations
4
Primary Topic
Advanced Sensor and Energy Harvesting Materials
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
2.70

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article

Direct‐Ink‐Writing Printed Stretchable Eutectic Gallium–Indium Antenna for Robust Wireless Communication

Zebing Zhou, Yerun Gao, Ming Shao, Xiangyu Guo et al.
4 citations
Advanced Science
Advanced Sensor and Energy Harvesting Materials
2.70
article

Direct‐Ink‐Writing Printed Stretchable Eutectic Gallium–Indium Antenna for Robust Wireless Communication

Zebing Zhou, Yerun Gao, Ming Shao, Xiangyu Guo, Yu Yu, Yufei Liu, H. Peng
article en
4 citations

Abstract

Stretchable antennas represent a pivotal innovation in enhancing wireless interconnection and driving the proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) applications. Eutectic Gallium-Indium (EGaIn) is an ideal conductor for stretchable antennas. However, the inherent high surface tension and fluidity of EGaIn make the patterning low-precision, time-consuming, and failure-prone. Here a wideband stretchable antenna is presented by direct writing of thermoplastic polyurethane-modified EGaIn ink and activated by water-bath ultrasound. The ink exhibits printing-friendly rheological properties and surface energy, enabling high patterning-precision printing (10 µm) while preserving excellent conductivity (1.6 × 10<sup>6</sup> S m<sup>-1</sup>). Benefiting from these improvements, the printed antenna achieves a large fractional bandwidth (75%), a high radiation efficiency (76.6%), and an exceptional ultimate strain (> 240%). For a proof-of-concept demonstration, the antenna enables a 50-meter wireless communication, under the case of 240% stretching or conformally wrapped around a drone. This work provides an efficient and universal strategy for manufacturing stretchable antennas, with broad potential in advanced IoTs technologies.

Advanced ScienceVol. 12(21)
Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics (CN), Huazhong University of Science and Technology (CN)
Innovative Research Group Project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, National Natural Science Foundation of China, Key Technologies Research and Development Program, National Key Research and Development Program of China
Affordable and clean energy
Openalex Percentile: Top 11%
Advanced Sensor and Energy Harvesting Materials
2.70
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