Harnessing directed buckling for switchable conductive pathway

Abstract eng:
Extensive studies have been conducted on buckling induced pattern transformation in free-standing structures while little attention in constrained structure. Here we study the swelling-induced buckling of arrays of thin stripes with their bottom fixed to the substrate, as well as their potential applications in switchable conductive pathway. We find that unlike the classical buckling of free-standing thin plate stripe only showing one global half wave, multiple local waves are generated on the top through bottom constrained buckling. The explicit analytical solutions for predicting buckled geometry are developed and validated by both finite element method (FEM) simulation and experiments. Moreover, we demonstrate the use of buckling-induced controllable contacts in enabling design of switchable conductive pathway in electricity, which opens up a wide range of novel application possibilities in conductive pathway, photonic/phonic wave guiding, and among others.

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