Controlled buckling of thin film on elastomeric substrate in large deformation

Electronic systems with large stretchability have many applications. A precisely controlled buckling strategy to increase the stretchability has been demonstrated by combining lithographically patterned surface bonding chemistry and a buckling process. The buckled geometry was assumed to have a sinusoidal form, which may result in errors to determine the strains in the film. A theoretical model is presented in this letter to study the mechanics of this type of thin film/substrate system by discarding the assumption of sinusoidal buckling geometry. It is shown that the previous model overestimates the deflection and curvature in the thin film. The results from the model agree well with finite element simulations and therefore provide design guidelines in many applications ranging from stretchable electronics to micro/nano scale surface patterning and precision metrology.