A digital clock continues to keep time as damaged circuits instantaneously heal themselves, 

rerouting electrical signals without interruption. Credit: Nature Materials

Many natural organisms have the ability to repair themselves. Now, manufactured machines 

will  be  able  to  mimic  this  property.  In  findings published  this  week  in Nature Materials, 

researchers  at  Carnegie  Mellon  University  have  created  a  self-healing  material  that 

spontaneously repairs itself under extreme mechanical damage.

This soft-matter composite material is composed of liquid metal droplets suspended in a soft 

elastomer.  When damaged, the droplets rupture to form new connections with neighboring 

droplets and reroute electrical signals without interruption. Circuits produced with conductive 

traces of this material remain fully and continuously operational when severed, punctured, or 

had material removed.

Applications  for   its  use  include  bio-inspired  robotics,  human-machine  interaction,  and 

wearable computing. Because the material also exhibits high electrical conductivity that does 

not change when stretched, it is ideal for use in power and data transmission.

"Other research in soft electronics has resulted in materials that are elastic and deformable, 

but  still  vulnerable  to the mechanical damage that causes electrical failure," said Carmel 

Majidi,  an  associate  professor  of  mechanical engineering. "The unprecedented level of 

functionality of our self-healing material can enable soft-matter electronics and machines to 

exhibit the extraordinary resilience of soft biological tissue and organisms."