A superstretchy transistor

Today’s electronic devices are rigid and brittle creations, largely because those are the traits of the semiconducting materials they depend on. But a clutch of materials scientists and engineers have been working to design a new generation of stretchable electronics that could serve as wearable devices, implantable biosensors, or electronic skins. Now Zhenan Bao and her colleagues at Stanford University have reported a leap forward in that pursuit: They’ve built a wearable transistor that’s as supple and durable as human skin. It works whether it’s twisted like a candy wrapper, stretched to twice its length, or poked by a nail.