We report on the detailed electrical investigation of all-inkjet-printed thin-film transistor (TFT) arrays focusing on TFT failures and their origins. The TFT arrays were manufactured on flexible polymer substrates in ambient condition without the need for cleanroom environment or inert atmosphere and at a maximum temperature of 150 °C. Alternative manufacturing processes for electronic devices such as inkjet printing suffer from lower accuracy compared to traditional microelectronic manufacturing methods. Furthermore, usually printing methods do not allow the manufacturing of electronic devices with high yield (high number of functional devices). In general, the manufacturing yield is much lower compared to the established conventional manufacturing methods based on lithography. Thus, the focus of this contribution is set on a comprehensive analysis of defective TFTs printed by inkjet technology. Based on root cause analysis, we present the defects by developing failure categories and discuss the reasons for the defects. This procedure identifies failure origins and allows the optimization of the manufacturing resulting finally to a yield improvement.

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Printing electronic passive components suffer from the lack of a wide variety of appropriate materials for developing components with specific characteristics, for specific dimensions. This paper introduces a multilayer approach for the inkjet printing of resistors, inductors and capacitors, showing that it is possible to manufacture tailored passive circuit elements and therefore their implementation into functional printed electronics. The materials and process steps for the manufacturing, the individual component characteristics and the equivalent circuit is provided for all passive devices.

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Drying and sintering of conductive nanoparticle inks for printed electronics attracts more and more interest. Sintering can be performed not only by conventional thermal heating (e.g. using a hot plate or an oven), but also by alternative sintering methods such as microwave, laser, intense pulsed light (IPL) sintering and others. It was recognized that most of the sintering processes limit the feasibility of roll-to-roll (R2R) processing due to the long time duration required for the sintering. In this contribution, we report about R2R IR drying and sintering of inkjet-printed silver (Ag) layers on a non-absorbent polyethylene naphthalate (PEN) substrate. A tailored IR module was developed and installed in a R2R printing system. We demonstrated the high potential of the IR post-treatment technology resulting in a conductivity of up to 15% of that of bulk Ag. In comparison to a conventional hot plate drying and sintering the conductivity achieved using the IR approach was more than doubled. By optimization of the presented IR parameters, drying and sintering was achieved at high web velocities up to 1 m s−1 with an exposure time of less than 0.5 s

Over the past decade, inkjet technology has been well recognized for the manufacturing of products that include “printing beyond colors.” This micrometer‐scale precise technology provides a straightforward approach toward judicious deposition of electronically functional material inks on various substrates over relatively large areas, for printed/flexible electronics. The technology promotes upscalability and has become a renowned process tool for fabricating electronic devices in the field of printed/flexible electronics. Here, the fabrication of printed thin‐film transistors (TFT) on cheap coated paper substrate using inkjet technology is reported. For developing the TFT layer stack conductive nanoparticle inks, a polymeric dielectric ink and a p‐type organic semiconductor ink are employed. The coating on the paper provides several advantages for fabrication process of TFTs; for example, control over ink spreading. This control of ink spreading can directly influence the fabrication of interdigitated source/drain (S/D) electrodes for TFTs, when a top gate bottom contact architecture is considered. This results in better manufacturing yields and promising electrical performance, which are also the focus of this research. The all inkjet‐printed TFTs on paper exhibit electrical performance with maximum S/D current ranging to 170 nA, charge carrier mobility of 0.087 cm2 V−1 s−1, and current on/off ratio of 330.

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Organic photodetectors (PDs) based on printing technologies will allow to expand the current field of PD applications toward large-area and flexible applications in areas such as medical imaging, security, and quality control, among others. Inkjet printing is a powerful digital tool for the deposition of smart and functional materials on various substrates, allowing the development of electronic devices such as PDs on various substrates. In this work, inkjet-printed PD arrays, based on the organic thin-film transistor architecture, have been developed and applied for the indirect detection of X-ray radiation using a scintillator ink as an X-ray absorber. The >90% increase of the photocurrent of the PDs under X-ray radiation, from about 53 nA without the scintillator film to about 102 nA with the scintillator located on top of the PD, proves the suitability of the developed printed device for X-ray detection applications.