Scientists have developed a novel metal ink which could pave the way for a wide range of new bendable gadgets, such as electronic books that look and feel more like traditional paperbacks.
The metal ink made of small sheets of copper can be used to write a functioning, flexible electric circuit on regular printer paper, researchers said.
In the study published in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, researchers noted that the tantalising possibilities of flexible electronics, from tablets that roll up to wearable circuits woven into clothes, have attracted a lot of attention in the past decade.
But much of the progress toward this coming wave of futuristic products has entailed making circuits using complicated, time-consuming and expensive processes, which would hinder their widespread use.
In response, researchers have been working toward a versatile conductive ink. They have tried several materials such as polymers and gold and silver nanostructures. So far, these materials have fallen short in one way or another.
So, the researchers of this study decided to try copper nanosheets, which are inexpensive and highly conductive, as a flexible circuit ink.
They made copper nanosheets coated with silver nanoparticles in the laboratory and incorporated this material into an ink pen, using it to draw patterns of lines, words and even flowers on regular printer paper.
Then, to show that the ink could conduct electricity, the scientists studded the drawings with small LED lights that lit up when the circuit was connected to a battery.
To test the ink's flexibility, they folded the papers 1,000 times, even crumpling them up, and found that the ink maintained 80 to 90 per cent of its conductivity.
