Printable semiconductors for flexible electronics

Article By:

Rogers, John A. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, Illinois.

Last reviewed:2007

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1036/1097-8542.YB071710

Large-area flexible electronic systems, recently referred to as macroelectronics, have attracted a great deal of attention in the last decade because of their potential applications in various areas, such as paperlike roll-up displays, conformable x-ray imagers, and steerable fold-up radio-frequency antennas, where conventional integrated circuits on wafer supports do not provide the necessary form factors. For these and other systems, thin substrates made of electrically insulating polymers represent an ideal choice, as demonstrated in various prototype systems that use thin-film-type semiconductor materials, ranging from small-molecule and polymeric organics to amorphous silicon. The low degree of crystallinity associated with these materials and the unfavorable nature of charge transport in them (for example, hopping mode as opposed to bandlike) results in relatively low performance and in some cases uncertain reliability and reproducibility, both of which limit their applications. Recently, a completely different approach has been explored, whereby high-quality single-crystalline inorganic semiconductors are directly printed onto a plastic substrates, followed by depositing and patterning other materials at relatively low temperatures (less than 250°C) to construct flexible transistors and circuits, with performances approaching that of similarly scaled wafer-based systems.

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