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2 nm thin gold nanowires (AuNWs) have extremely high aspect ratio (≈10 000) and are nanoscale soft building blocks; this is different from conventional silver nanowires (AgNWs), which are more rigid. Here, highly sensitive, stretchable, patchable, and transparent strain sensors are fabricated based on the hybrid films of soft/hard networks. They are mechanically stretchable, optically transparent, and electrically conductive and are fabricated using a simple and cost-effective solution process. The combination of soft and more rigid nanowires enables their use as high-performance strain sensors with the maximum gauge factor (GF) of ≈236 at low strain (<5%), the highest stretchability of up to 70% strain, and the optical transparency is from 58.7% to 66.7% depending on the amount of the AuNW component. The sensors can detect strain as low as 0.05% and are energy efficient to operate at a voltage as low as 0.1 V. These attributes are difficult to achieve with a single component of either AuNWs or AgNWs. The outstanding sensing performance indicates their potential applications as 'invisible' wearable sensors for biometric information collection, as demonstrated in applications for detecting facial expressions, respiration, and apexcardiogram. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wetting behaviors on stretchable supports are very common in our daily lives, however, received limited attention even they show promising potentials in flexible electronics and other fields. In this study, stretchable wetting behaviors of conductive liquids deposited onto two horizontal rubber fibers are investigated. A firm liquid/solid interaction during the stretching process can contribute to a stable liquid bridge between the fibers even under extremely stretching, showing their proof-to-principle ability to monitor human movement toward early diagnosis of Parkinson's disease or sports injury prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]