Bendy, stretchy, graphene transistors? Yes please.

The world gets cooler by the day. Yet another of graphene’s unusual properties – this time its stretchiness – has brought it to the fore, as a team of researchers in South Korea have used the material to build stretchable transistors.

The work, which is published in Nano Letters, shows that graphene succeeds where traditional flexible materials fail.

Jong-Hyun Ahn from Sungkyunkwan University in Suwon, South Korea, told the website PhysOrg.com that the research included direct comparisons with other papers about stretchable and transparent devices.

"In fact, it is nearly impossible to fabricate transistors that offer both mechanical stretchability and high optical transparency on unusual substrates such as rubber slabs or balloons by using conventional materials," Ahn said. "In particular, graphene devices have the advantage that they can be integrated using printing processes at room temperature without vacuum or high-temperature steps. The capabilities of these systems go far beyond conventional material-based systems."

The researchers showed that graphere transistors could be stretched up to five percent before microscopic cracks and other defects began to affect the electrical properties of the transistors.

In one experiment, the team fabricated a graphene transistor on a rubber balloon and measured its properties as they inflated and deflated it. Science is a very serious business.

There is more here on PhysOrg.com.