Topic: Self-Healing and Flexible Materials: Paving the Future of Electronic Technologies and Devices

Electronic technologies are rapidly evolving from rigid and brittle systems toward soft, flexible, and resilient platforms. Emerging applications, including wearable devices and bio-integrated electronics, demand advanced materials that can withstand continuous deformation, mechanical damage, and complex operating environments. In this context, self-healing soft and flexible materials have emerged as key enablers of next-generation electronic technologies. Soft material systems, such as polymer networks, hydrogels, ionic gels, elastomers, and supramolecular assemblies, offer unique combinations of mechanical compliance, stretchability, and biocompatibility, enabling seamless integration with curvilinear, dynamic, and delicate biological surfaces. When endowed with self-healing capabilities, these materials can autonomously restore their mechanical integrity and functional performance after damage, thereby significantly enhancing device durability, operational reliability, and service lifetime. Consequently, self-healing soft electronics exhibit strong potential for applications in health monitoring, disease diagnosis, personalized healthcare, electronic skins, bio-integrated systems, information storage, and memory devices.

This Special Issue aims to showcase recent advances in self-healing and flexible materials for electronic applications, with a particular focus on soft material design, self-healing mechanisms, wearable and bio-integrated devices, information storage technologies, and healthcare-related applications. We welcome contributions from a broad range of disciplines, including materials science, nanotechnology, polymer science, chemistry, information science, electrical and electronic engineering, and biomedical engineering. Both experimental and theoretical studies that provide fundamental insights into or demonstrate innovative applications of self-healing and flexible materials are strongly encouraged.

Self-healing; dynamic bonding mechanisms; wearable devices; soft biosensors; electronic skins; disease diagnosis; memory devices