View article

Thin-film field-effect transistors are essential elements of stretchable electronic devices for wearable electronics^,. All of the materials and components of such transistors need to be stretchable and mechanically robust^,. Although there has been recent progress towards stretchable conductors^,,,, the realization of stretchable semiconductors has focused mainly on strain-accommodating engineering of materials, or blending of nanofibres or nanowires into elastomers^,,. An alternative approach relies on using semiconductors that are intrinsically stretchable, so that they can be fabricated using standard processing methods. Molecular stretchability can be enhanced when conjugated polymers, containing modified side-chains and segmented backbones, are infused with more flexible molecular building blocks^,. Here we present a design concept for stretchable semiconducting polymers, which involves introducing …