Pervasive liquid metal printed electronics: From concept incubation to industry

Electronic devices play vital role in modern civilization. Compared to conventional electronic manufacturing, the recently emerging liquid metal printed electronics (LMPE) is opening many extraordinary opportunities, such as large-area printing, pervasive adaptability, flexibility for personal use, low cost, high performance, and environmental friendliness. More uniquely, liquid metal printing allows customize electronic products on demand to fabricate electronics spanning from 2D plane surface to 3D structure and on any desired substrates. This deems it to reshape modern electronics and integrated circuits field. So far, a variety of technological breakthroughs in this new generation electronic engineering area have been made in the process of developing various liquid metal functional inks, printing machines and applications, which significantly stimulate the quick incubation and formation of a new electronic industry. Clearly, sorting out the major R&D directions and clarifying future challenges is crucial for the large scale industrialization of LMPE. This perspective article is dedicated to briefly outline the representative principles and key technologies lying behind, and illustrate the milestone products and equipment thus invented for the coming LMPE industry. In addition, we evaluate the corresponding industrialization trends and promising roadmap and interpret future prospects for the new era of pervasive electronics when anyone can freely use such a tool to print out himself functional electronic device to fulfill various purposes at anywhere and anytime.