Self-healing electrical circuit could aid space applications

Led by aerospace engineering professor Scott White and materials science and engineering professor Nancy Sottos, the researchers published their results in the journal Advanced Materials.



‘It simplifies the system,’ said chemistry professor Jeffrey Moore, a co-author of the paper. ‘Rather than having to build-in redundancies or a sensory diagnostics system, this material is designed to take care of the problem itself.’



According to a statement, electronics manufacturers are putting as much density onto a chip as possible, which can lead to reliability problems, such as failure stemming from fluctuating temperature cycles as the device operates.

A failure at any point in the circuit can shut down the whole device. In applications such as instruments or vehicles for space or military functions, failed electronics cannot be replaced or repaired.



‘In general, there’s not much avenue for manual repair,’ said Sottos. ‘Sometimes you just can’t get to the inside. In a multilayer integrated circuit, there’s no opening it up. Normally, you just replace the whole chip. It’s true for a battery too. You can’t pull a battery apart and try to find the source of the failure.’