Application of Multilayered Blend Films as Soft, Stretchable, Self‐Adhesive, and Self‐Healing Absorption‐Dominant EMI Shielding and Microwave Absorber

Abstract

Abstract

Solution-processable organic conductor–supramolecular elastomer blends are emerging materials for intrinsically stretchable and autonomously self-healing organic electronics. Herein, the feasibility of a heterogenous multiphase polymer blend is demonstrated for soft, ultraflexible, self-adhesive, and self-healing multilayered film structures for electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding and microwave absorber (MWA) purposes. The developed soft multilayered films achieve a 5–40 fold improvement in the thickness of the MWA compared to the current state-of-the-art. The thickness normalized reflection loss (RL) is up to 65.26 dB mm−1 with 8.5 GHz bandwidth at 18–26.5 GHz. The maximum thickness normalized EMI shielding effectiveness peaks at up to 175 dB mm−1. The EMI shielding and MWA properties are maintainable up to 150% tensile strain with only a small decrease in the overall attenuation and RL. Furthermore, the developed films are capable of fully autonomously self-healing and achieve a tough adhesion in temperatures of −30–145 °C, and underwater with maximum single-lap shear adhesion strength of ≈481.5 kPa to soft thermoplastic polyurethane films. Thus, the developed multilayered films can be utilized for absorption-dominant EMI shielding or MWA purposes as stretchable coatings. The developed materials also show considerable potential for emerging damage and puncture-resistant organic soft electronics with autonomous material-level self-healing.