Vibration Characteristics of Island-Bridge Structure on Porous PDMS Substrates for Stretchable Electronics

Stretchable electronics employing island-bridge structure design can achieve controllable and reversible stretchability. The use of a porous substrate, which provides excellent breathability for wearable devices bonded to skin, not only satisfies this static superiority but also has a profound impact on the dynamic performance of the stretchable electronics. In this paper, the vibration characteristics of the island-bridge structure based on porous polydimethylsiloxane (p-PDMS) substrates are studied by utilizing an analytical model, which takes account of geometric nonlinearity due to mid-plane stretching, buckling configuration, elastic boundary conditions considering the p-PDMS substrates and the mass of the island. In numerical examples, the accuracy of the analytical model is first verified by finite element analysis (FEA). After that, we investigate the effects of some primary factors, i.e., the prestrain of the substrate, spring stiffnesses at the ends of the interconnect, porosity and thickness of the substrate, and the mass of the island, on the natural frequencies and vibration mode shapes of the island-bridge structure. Results show that the vibration characteristics of the island-bridge structure can be tuned conveniently by adjusting the porosity of the substrate and the mass of the island, which are expected to be helpful to mechanical design and optimization of stretchable electronics in complex noise environments.