The next generation of consumable electronics and biomedical devices feature more intimate integration with human bodies and tissues, which makes the development of stretchable electronics that can function under straining highly desirable. Besides the device structural engineering approaches, the realization of stretchable electronics based on the development of intrinsically stretchable electronic materials could offer a number of important advantages, including larger strain tolerance, higher device density and simpler fabrication. In order to construct stretchable circuits and functional systems utilizing the intrinsically stretchable materials, the fabrication technology of stretchable transistor array is critically important. With polymer as the primary material system for the intrinsically stretchable semiconductors and dielectrics, the traditional fabrication processes for Si-electronics are not compatible. In this work, we developed the first all-solution-processed fabrication strategy that gives the first stretchable transistor array based on polymer semiconductor and dielectrics. This innovative fabrication process gives the record-high device density, a yield almost 100%, and little performance variation among individual devices. With the intrinsic stretchability of the semiconductor and the strain-engineering design, this array can keep its original performance without any degradation under a large strain up to 100%. In order to reveal its practical applicability in the development of next-generation electronics, this stretchable transistor array is further utilized as the backplane in a constructed stretchable active-matrix LED array display. In another demonstration, prototypes of stretchable logic circuits have been realized based on this stretchable transistor array. With the fabrication process reported here, future-developed intrinsically stretchable semiconductors and dielectrics can be combined to generate transistor arrays with even higher stretchability and robustness. Moreover, the nature of all-solution-processing makes this fabrication strategy scalable and cost-effective for the industrialization.

All-solution-processed stretchable transistor arrays based on polymer semiconductor and dielectric

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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