title: High thermal conductivity in soft elastomers with elongated liquid metal inclusions.
abstract: Soft dielectric materials typically exhibit poor heat transfer properties due to the dynamics of phonon transport, which constrain thermal conductivity (k) to decrease monotonically with decreasing elastic modulus (E). This thermal-mechanical trade-off is limiting for wearable computing, soft robotics, and other emerging applications that require materials with both high thermal conductivity and low mechanical stiffness. Here, we overcome this constraint with an electrically insulating composite that exhibits an unprecedented combination of metal-like thermal conductivity, an elastic compliance similar to soft biological tissue (Young's modulus < 100 kPa), and the capability to undergo extreme deformations (>600% strain). By incorporating liquid metal (LM) microdroplets into a soft elastomer, we achieve a ∼25× increase in thermal conductivity (4.7 ± 0.2 W⋅m-1⋅K-1) over the base polymer (0.20 ± 0.01 W⋅m-1·K-1) under stress-free conditions and a ∼50× increase (9.8 ± 0.8 W⋅m-1·K-1) when strained. This exceptional combination of thermal and mechanical properties is enabled by a unique thermal-mechanical coupling that exploits the deformability of the LM inclusions to create thermally conductive pathways in situ. Moreover, these materials offer possibilities for passive heat exchange in stretchable electronics and bioinspired robotics, which we demonstrate through the rapid heat dissipation of an elastomer-mounted extreme high-power LED lamp and a swimming soft robot.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213.
authors.forename: Michael D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Bartlett
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213.
authors.forename: Navid
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-3378-2750
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kazem
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213.
authors.forename: Matthew J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Powell-Palm
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213.
authors.forename: Xiaonan
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213.
authors.forename: Wenhuan
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213.|Department of Materials Science & Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213.
authors.forename: Jonathan A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Malen
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213; cmajidi@andrew.cmu.edu.|Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213.|Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213.
authors.forename: Carmel
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Majidi
keywords: liquid metal; soft materials; soft robotics; stretchable electronics; thermal conductivity