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.
Authors
- Zebing Zhou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6178-1520)
- Yerun Gao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4018-5762)
- Ming Shao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3709-7785)
- Xiangyu Guo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0007-3202-1024)
- Yu Yu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8421-6794)
- Yufei Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9420-8811)
- H. Peng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-4622-5832)
Institutions
- Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics (CN)
- Huazhong University of Science and Technology (CN)
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
Funders
- 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