An Elastically Stretchable TFT Circuit

Materials for stretchable electronics

“…The islands are made of one of the circuit materials (see the Kim et al article), 33 of separate thin-fi lm materials, 34 or of stiff plastic foil (see the Sekitani and Someya article). 13 In a macroscopic approach to building stretchable systems, conventional rigid printed circuit board "islands" are connected with stretchable Figure 1. A substrate may be permanently shaped, bent, or stretched uniaxially, biaxially, or radially by mechanical force.…”

“…Elastomeric substrates and elastic interconnects let circuits go a shape beyond: to reversible deformation and near-arbitrary dimensions. [11][12][13][14][15][16] Sizes and shapes of elastomeric circuits can be changed reversibly by applying mechanical force, 17 by gas pressure, 18,19 or by application of an electric fi eld. 20,21 Now we can make electronic skin, 22 conformable sensors and displays (see the Kim et al and Sekitani and Someya articles in this issue), electronic biointerfaces, 12,[23][24][25] electronic muscles, 20,21,26 and energy harvesters (see the article by Kornbluh et al in this issue).…”

High-Resolution Thin-Film Device to Sense Texture by Touch

“…Moreover, there is great interest in developing humanoid robots (8,9) that can sense shapes (10,11), textures (12,13), and hardness (14) and manipulate complex objects (11), which are not readily possible by vision alone. Touch (or tactile) sensors are usually made as micro-electromechanical systems composed of micromachined deformable components (15) or by integrating chip with electronic circuit and strain sensitive materials, such as magento-resistive ceramics (16), piezoelectric polymers (17,18), and strain sensitive conducting elastomers (19,20). Tactile sensors from optical data have been demonstrated in which the contact stress distribution is calculated from the change in shape of the deformable sensor surface obtained by a camera (21).…”

Fracture and Delamination of Chromium Thin Films on Polymer Substrates

“…The typical route to create deformable devices on polymer substrates is to fabricate stiff islands, commonly made with silicon-nitride, where active cells (thin film transistors) are fabricated and connected by metal lines. [1][2][3][4] These interconnect lines must deform with the substrate and survive strains greater than 10 pct while maintaining electrical conductivity. [1,2,5] Several studies have examined the tensile strength of blanket copper (Cu), aluminum, and gold films on polymer substrates [6][7][8][9][10][11] as well as gold lines.…”