I am happy to share the progress I have made as a DEIS Graduate Student Fellow. This fellowship has provided invaluable support to improve my Ph.D. research. I am deeply grateful to the DEIS Education Committee for the opportunity and to my advisor for continuous guidance.
My project focuses on developing high-performance intrinsically stretchable electret materials. Electrets—dielectrics material with quasi-permanent charge storage—have broad applications. Whereas conventional approaches in developing stretchable electrets rely on blending electrets with stretchable substrates, our work demonstrates an intrinsically stretchable high-performance electret, thereby broadening the application of electret material.
We selected a perfluorinated elastomer as the electret backbone. Assisted by quantum chemical anylasis, we identified the functional groups that can enhance charge-trap sites, and incorporated them into the polymer material via cross-linking reaction. The obtained material achieves a surface charge density of 1 mC·m⁻² and shows negligible charge decay after more than 10,000 stretch cycles. The development of intrinsically stretchable electret paves the way for wider applications of electret material.
Presenting my work at the IEEE Conference on Electrical Insulation and Dielectric Phenomena (CEIDP) 2025.
The DEIS fellowship has significantly supported my academic and professional development by connecting me with the DEIS community. I am encouraged to attend conferences and built meaningful collaborations and friendships that provided constructive feedback on my research and career planning. I presented part of this work at CEIDP 2025 in Manchester and was honored to receive the Best Student Poster Award.
I am sincerely grateful for the DEIS community’s support and for all who have contributed to it. I hope more students and early-career researchers will find here an open research outlook and meaningful professional development.