Abstract
The brittle nature of today’s displays, solar cells, and touchscreens leads to adverse economic and environmental impacts, driving the need for thin-film, flexible optoelectronics that are resistant to strain, impact, sharp objects, and liquids. This vision requires cost-effective, scalable production of ultra-resilient transparent conductors capable of withstanding millions of deformation cycles—challenges that nanowire-based electrodes have yet to overcome. In nature, particular insect wings achieve a unique blend of transparency, resilience, and lightness. This inspired us to develop liquid metal-based transparent conductors with nature-inspired gyroid-like nanostructures that outperformed nanowire-based counterparts significantly in conductivity and stretchability (7×), withstanding a record-breaking strain of 1400% and unprecedented stability over 100,000 strain cycles. Unlike nanowire-based electrodes, this electrode is simple, low-cost, scalable, and recyclable. The formation of such a nano-scaffold is beyond the reach of lithographic techniques but is enabled by our unconventional technique: graphene-assisted self-assembly of liquid metal nanodroplets into a porous 3D microstructure. We demonstrate mechanically resilient soft-matter electroluminescent displays with high light intensity and extend their applications to soft robotics, light-emitting muscles, energy harvesting, transparent heaters, and UV sensors. By harnessing the deformability of liquid metal, we demonstrate a transparent pressure-sensing film that converts any display into a pressure-sensing interface.
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Acknowledgements
This study was funded by the European Research Council, ERC Consolidator Grant, Liquid 3D, under Grant agreement ID: 101045072, and the Carnegie Mellon-Portugal dual-degree PhD program, funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology of Portugal (PRT/BD/154918/2022). The funder played no role in study design, data collection, analysis and interpretation of data, or the writing of this manuscript.
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The authors declare no competing financial or non-financial interests. Pending patent application “Suspension, colloid or network comprising liquid metal droplets bound with graphene-based particles, respective ink, transparent stretchable conductor and obtention process thereof” (US application no. 18/860,738, filed 26 April 2023) is co–invented by the undersigned and co–inventors Mahmoud Tavakoli, Pedro Filipe Alhais Lopes, Alexandre Chambel, Marta Sofia Calisto Freitas, and Afsaneh Lalsanati, and is filed by Universidade de Coimbra. This patent application is currently pending and covers the composition of the liquid metal/graphene-based conductive suspensions and inks, as well as the processes used to fabricate the transparent, stretchable conductors that are employed in the devices reported in this manuscript. Author M.T. is a Guest Editor of npj flexible electronics collection Liquid Metals-Based Devices for Flexible Electronics. M.T. was not involved in the journal’s review of, or decisions related to, this manuscript.
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Alhais Lopes, P., Calisto Freitas, M., F. Silva, A. et al. Liquid metal nano-gyroid stretchable transparent conductor for ultra-resilient optoelectronics and electroluminescence. npj Flex Electron (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41528-026-00586-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41528-026-00586-w
