A High-yield Two-step Transfer Printing Method for Large-scale Fabrication of Organic Single-crystal Devices on Arbitrary Substrates

Abstract

Single-crystal organic nanostructures show promising applications in flexible and stretchable electronics, while their applications are impeded by the large incompatibility with the well-developed photolithography techniques. Here we report a novel two-step transfer printing (TTP) method for the construction of organic nanowires (NWs) based devices onto arbitrary substrates. Copper phthalocyanine (CuPc) NWs are first transfer-printed from the growth substrate to the desired receiver substrate by contact-printing (CP) method, and then electrode arrays are transfer-printed onto the resulting receiver substrate by etching-assisted transfer printing (ETP) method. By utilizing a thin copper (Cu) layer as sacrificial layer, microelectrodes fabricated on it via photolithography could be readily transferred to diverse conventional or non-conventional substrates that are not easily accessible before with a high transfer yield of near 100%. The ETP method also exhibits an extremely high flexibility; various electrodes such as Au, Ti, and Al etc. can be transferred, and almost all types of organic devices, such as resistors, Schottky diodes, and field-effect transistors (FETs), can be constructed on planar or complex curvilinear substrates. Significantly, these devices can function properly and exhibit closed or even superior performance than the device counterparts fabricated by conventional approach.

Flexible nonvolatile memory transistors using indium gallium zinc oxide-channel and ferroelectric polymer poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-trifluoroethylene) fabricated on elastomer substrate

“…4 For next-generation flexible electronics, it is strongly desired to develop highly flexible circuit components, which can be bent, twisted, rolled, and stretched. 1-3 Novel devices such as bendable and foldable display, conformable sensor, biomedical electronics, and other flexible electronic applications have been demonstrated and they have been achieved by utilizing mechanically flexible electronic components.…”

A Bioactive Carbon Nanotube‐Based Ink for Printing 2D and 3D Flexible Electronics

“…[7] The strategies for fabrication of conductive patterns on flexible substrates include the use of printable conductive inks and the deposition process which uses for deposition using different techniques such as screen printing, contact printing, and transfer printing. [8, 9] Among these technologies, printing conductive inks has drawn significant attention for fabrication of complex two-dimensional (2D) or three-dimensional (3D) flexible electronics owing to its robustness, cost effectiveness, and the high resolution of emerging commercial printers. [10, 11] In contrast to other microfabrication technologies that mostly result in planar structures, printing allow the fabrication of complex electrical circuits in a 3D manner.…”

Improved charge carrier mobility in copper phthalocyanine based field effect transistors by insertion of a thin poorly conducting layer as gate insulator extension

“…. Transconductance data for CuPc‐based FETs are scarcely available, but the cr‐PVA/PEDOT:PSS/CuPc devices show values at least one order of magnitude better than those previously reported . Another point to be noted, is that the gate leakage current is in general lower in cr‐PVA/PEDOT:PSS/CuPc devices than in devices with PEDOT:PSS absence, also constituting an advantage of the treatment.…”