Printing Flexible, Stretchable Silver Nanowire Circuits

Silver nanowires have drawn significant interest in recent years for use in many applications ranging from prosthetic devices to wearable health sensors due to their flexibility, stretchability, and conductive properties. While proof-of-concept experiments have been promising, there have been significant challenges to printing highly integrated circuits using silver nano-wires. Silver nanoparticles can be used to print circuits, but the nanoparticles produce circuits that are more brittle and less conductive than silver nano-wires. Conventional techniques for printing circuits don't work well with silver nanowires; the nanowires often clog the printing nozzles.