All-in-One plasticized Ionogel-based stretchable electrochromic devices

The water-resistive transparent stretchable pECIonogel has excellent mechanical and electrical properties and exhibited high electrochromic performance. The pECIonogel can be utilized for application in flexible and stretchable ECDs due to its stretchability, conductivity, and water resistivity. The stretchable ECD can easily undergo stretching, twisting, folding and relaxing without degradation of electrochromic performance. [Display omitted] •All-in-one pECIonogels are prepared for flexible and stretchable ECDs.•Flexible ECDs show high transmittance contrast, color efficiency, and rapid switching.•Flexible ECDs exhibit stability even upon compressive and tensile bending.•Stretchable ECDs are also fabricated using Ag NWs onto both sides of the pECIonogel.•Stretchable ECDs are stable after stretching, twisting, and folding. While all-in-one electrochromic devices (ECDs) have attracted attention for application in wearable stretchable electronics, electrochromic materials today are unstretchable, water-vulnerable, and prone to electrolyte leakage. To address this issue, water-resistive, leakage-free, transparent, and stretchable all-in-one plasticized electrochromic ionogels (pECIonogels) are prepared. The optimized pECIonogels are used to build flexible and stretchable ECDs. The fabricated ECDs exhibit high transmittance contrast (96.8% ΔT), rapid switching time (tc,90% = 7 s, tb,90% = 19 s), and high effective coloration efficiency (285.56 cm2 C−1) at 607 nm under an applied bias voltage of −1.0 V. Moreover, the flexible ECDs show good stability even upon compressive and tensile bending. A stretchable ECD was also fabricated by directly coating Ag nanowires on the pECIonogel through a water-assisted pre-strain method. The stretchable ECD at 50% tensile strain shows lower transmittance contrast (36.0% ΔT), slower coloration/bleaching switching (tc,90% = 222 s, tb,90% = 178 s), and reduced effective coloration efficiency (226.67 cm2 C−1) than the unstretched ECD. Nevertheless, the stretchable ECDs are stable in the relaxed and colored states after being stretched, twisted, and folded. Therefore, the proposed all-in-one pECIonogel-based ECDs are promising for the development of next-generation stretchable, wearable, and implantable electronics.