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THIN-FILM TRANSISTORS

Stretchable helix-structured fibre electronics

Nature Electronics volume 4, pages 864–865 (2021)Cite this article

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Printed thin-film transistors and circuits fabricated on plastic strips can be wrapped around fibres to create stretchable electronics.

Electronic devices fabricated using unconventional electronic materials — such as organic semiconductors, plastic insulators and conducting polymers — can be used to develop electronic products that are mechanically flexible, can be integrated with textiles and are compatible with human tissues and organs1. The key building block for this technology is the organic thin-film transistor (OTFT): a device that comprises three electrical contacts, a semiconductor layer and a gate insulator (which functions as an electronic valve). Several types of OTFT-based circuit have already been developed that offer performance that surpasses that of thin-film transistors (TFTs) and circuits based on amorphous silicon, which is the technology used in the backplanes of most displays. OTFT-based devices also exhibit greater mechanical stress tolerance than devices based on amorphous silicon TFTs2.

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Fig. 1: Fabricating stretchable strip-helix-fibre transistors and circuits.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Organic Electronics, Department of Science and Technology, Linköping University, Norrköping, Sweden

    Simone Fabiano & Antonio Facchetti

  2. Department of Chemistry and the Materials Research Center, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

    Antonio Facchetti

  3. Flexterra Inc., Skokie, IL, USA

    Antonio Facchetti

Authors
  1. Simone Fabiano
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  2. Antonio Facchetti
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Correspondence to Simone Fabiano or Antonio Facchetti.

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Competing interests

A.F. is the chief technology officer of Flexterra Corporation, a company developing organic transistor technologies.

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Fabiano, S., Facchetti, A. Stretchable helix-structured fibre electronics. Nat Electron 4, 864–865 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-021-00693-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-021-00693-8

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