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Synthesis of ultrathin polymer insulating layers by initiated chemical vapour deposition for low-power soft electronics

Nature Materials volume 14, pages 628–635 (2015)Cite this article

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Abstract

Insulating layers based on oxides and nitrides provide high capacitance, low leakage, high breakdown field and resistance to electrical stresses when used in electronic devices based on rigid substrates. However, their typically high process temperatures and brittleness make it difficult to achieve similar performance in flexible or organic electronics. Here, we show that poly(1,3,5-trimethyl-1,3,5-trivinyl cyclotrisiloxane) (pV3D3) prepared via a one-step, solvent-free technique called initiated chemical vapour deposition (iCVD) is a versatile polymeric insulating layer that meets a wide range of requirements for next-generation electronic devices. Highly uniform and pure ultrathin films of pV3D3 with excellent insulating properties, a large energy gap (>8 eV), tunnelling-limited leakage characteristics and resistance to a tensile strain of up to 4% are demonstrated. The low process temperature, surface-growth character, and solvent-free nature of the iCVD process enable pV3D3 to be grown conformally on plastic substrates to yield flexible field-effect transistors as well as on a variety of channel layers, including organics, oxides, and graphene.

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Figure 1: pV3D3 polymer insulating layers produced by iCVD.
Figure 2: Insulating properties of pV3D3 layers, analysed for Al/pV3D3/Al MIM devices.
Figure 3: Bottom-gated C60 FETs with ultrathin pV3D3 GIs on various gate electrodes and substrates.
Figure 4: Top-gated P3HT, IGZO and graphene FETs with pV3D3 GIs.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (MSIP) (Grant Nos 2011-0010730 (S.G.I.), 2013-065553 (B.J.C.), NRF-2014R1A2A1A11052860 (S.Y.)), and by a grant from the Center for Advanced Soft Electronics funded by MSIP as Global Frontier Project (Grant Nos CASE-2011-0031638 (B.J.C.), CASE-2014M3A6A5060948 (S.Y.), CASE-2013M3A6A5073183 (Y-Y.N.)). We are grateful to S-Y. Choi at KAIST for allowing us to use a cryogenic vacuum probe station for temperature-dependent measurement of insulator characteristics and to M. C. Barr at Ubiquitous Energy for valuable comments. We also appreciate C. S. Hwang at Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) for the deposition of IGZO layers.

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  1. Hanul Moon, Hyejeong Seong and Woo Cheol Shin: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and technology (KAIST), Daejeon 305-701, Republic of Korea

    Hanul Moon, Woo Cheol Shin, Mincheol Kim, Seungwon Lee, Jae Hoon Bong, Byung Jin Cho & Seunghyup Yoo

  2. Graphene Research Center, KI for Nanocentury, KAIST, Daejeon 305-701, Republic of Korea

    Hanul Moon, Hyejeong Seong, Woo Cheol Shin, Mincheol Kim, Seungwon Lee, Jae Hoon Bong, Byung Jin Cho, Seunghyup Yoo & Sung Gap Im

  3. Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, KAIST, Daejeon 305-701, Republic of Korea

    Hyejeong Seong & Sung Gap Im

  4. Department of Energy and Materials Engineering, Dongguk University, Seoul 100-715, Republic of Korea

    Won-Tae Park & Yong-Young Noh

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Contributions

S.G.I., S.Y., H.M. and H.S. designed the experiments on the use of iCVD-based polymers for insulators of organic and oxide electronic devices and analysed the associated experimental results. H.M. and H.S. carried out fabrication and characterization of films and devices made thereof. M.K. and S.L. also carried out the related experiments and characterization. W.C.S., H.S., J.H.B., S.G.I. and B.J.C. designed the work on graphene FETs and interpreted experimental results. W.C.S., H.S. and J.H.B. carried out the associated experiments. Y-Y.N. and W-T.P. designed the work on solution-processed OFET arrays and interpreted the related experimental results. H.M., H.S., W.C.S., B.J.C., S.Y. and S.G.I. wrote the manuscript. All authors read and commented on the manuscript. H.M., H.S. and W.C.S. contributed equally to this work. B.J.C., S.Y. and S.G.I. contributed equally as corresponding authors.

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Correspondence to Byung Jin Cho, Seunghyup Yoo or Sung Gap Im.

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Moon, H., Seong, H., Shin, W. et al. Synthesis of ultrathin polymer insulating layers by initiated chemical vapour deposition for low-power soft electronics. Nature Mater 14, 628–635 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4237

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