{"id":221651,"date":"2025-09-10T03:41:34","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T08:41:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/09\/cracks-in-flexible-electronics-run-deeper-than-expected-study-points-to-potential-fix"},"modified":"2025-09-10T03:41:34","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T08:41:34","slug":"cracks-in-flexible-electronics-run-deeper-than-expected-study-points-to-potential-fix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/09\/cracks-in-flexible-electronics-run-deeper-than-expected-study-points-to-potential-fix","title":{"rendered":"Cracks in flexible electronics run deeper than expected: Study points to potential fix"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/cracks-in-flexible-electronics-run-deeper-than-expected-study-points-to-potential-fix.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>From health monitors and smartwatches to foldable phones and portable solar panels, demand for flexible electronics is growing rapidly. But the durability of those devices\u2014their ability to stand up to thousands of folds, flexes and rolls\u2014is a significant concern.<\/p>\n<p>New research by engineers from Brown University has revealed surprising details about how cracks form in multilayer flexible electronic devices. The team shows that small cracks in a device\u2019s fragile electrode layer can drive deeper, more destructive cracks into the tougher polymer substrate layer on which the electrodes sit. The work overturns a long-held assumption that polymer substrates usually resist cracking.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe substrate in <a href=\"https:\/\/techxplore.com\/tags\/flexible+electronic+devices\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">flexible electronic devices<\/a> is a bit like the foundation in your house,\u201d said Nitin Padture, a professor of engineering at Brown and corresponding author of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41528-025-00470-z\" target=\"_blank\">study published<\/a> in <i>npj Flexible Electronics<\/i>. \u201cIf it\u2019s cracked, it compromises the mechanical integrity of the entire device. This is the first clear evidence of cracking in a device substrate caused by a brittle film on top of it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From health monitors and smartwatches to foldable phones and portable solar panels, demand for flexible electronics is growing rapidly. But the durability of those devices\u2014their ability to stand up to thousands of folds, flexes and rolls\u2014is a significant concern. New research by engineers from Brown University has revealed surprising details about how cracks form in [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1495,1512,1633,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-221651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","category-mobile-phones","category-solar-power","category-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221651\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}