Design Considerations for Optimized Lateral Spring Structures for Wearable Electronics

The market for wearable electronics has been gaining momentum in the recent years. For completely electronic wearable textiles with integrated sensors, actuators, computing units and communication circuitry, it is important that there is significant stretchability. This stretchability can be obtained by introducing periodic stretchable structures between the electronic circuits. In this work, we derive the equations and constraints governing the stretchability in horseshoe lateral spring structures. We have derived the optimum design and the parameters therein, to help develop the best spring structures for a given stretchability. We have also developed a figure of merit, called area efficiency of stretchability, to compare all two-dimensional stretchable systems. Finally, we experimentally verify the validity of our equations by fabricating a metal/polymer bilayer thin film based stretchable horseshoe lateral spring structures. We obtain a stretchability of 1.875 which is comparable to the theoretical maxima of 2.01 for the given parameters.