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A vacuum-deposited polymer dielectric for wafer-scale stretchable electronics

Nature Electronics volume 6, pages 137–145 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

Despite recent advances in materials and fabrication technologies, the development of intrinsically stretchable electronic devices with large-area uniformity, low power consumption and performance comparable with conventional rigid devices remains challenging. A key limitation is the absence of an elastic dielectric material that can be thin and uniform over large areas as well as offer robust insulating properties and high mechanical and chemical stability. Here we show that a vacuum-deposited elastic polymer layer can be used as the gate dielectric in stretchy field-effect transistors with carbon nanotube channels and microcracked gold electrodes. The polymer dielectric layer has high insulation properties (at a thickness below 200 nm), high stability and large-area uniformity. An 8-inch wafer array of the stretchable carbon nanotube transistors exhibits good uniformity in their electrical performance and can maintain their performance after 1,000 stretching cycles at 40% strain. We use the transistors to construct stretchy inverters and logic gates that can function under applied strains of up to 40%.

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Fig. 1: Schematic of the intrinsically stretchable electronic devices, including transistors and logic gates on an elastomeric substrate.
Fig. 2: Vacuum-deposited stretchable polymer dielectric.
Fig. 3: Intrinsically stretchable CNT transistors using a vacuum-deposited dielectric film.
Fig. 4: Stretching test of intrinsically stretchable CNT transistors and their application to low-power PMOS inverters.
Fig. 5: Intrinsically stretchable CNT logic gates and their VTCs.

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The data that support the other findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the following funding sources: Institute for Basic Science (IBS-R006-A1 and IBS-R015-D1) (J.H.K., S.L., J.-K.S., J.Y., S.-H.S., D.C.K., D.-H.K. and D.S.); the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korean government (MSIT) (no. 2020R1C1C1005567) (D.S.); the Samsung Science and Technology Foundation under project no. SRFC-IT2102-04 (J.K., J.C., H.J.P., W.N. and S.G.I.); and the Basic Science Research Program through the NRF funded by the Ministry of Education (2021R1I1A1A01060389) (J.H.K.).

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Ja Hoon Koo, Juyeon Kang, Sungjun Lee.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Nanoparticle Research, Institute for Basic Science (IBS), Seoul, Republic of Korea

    Ja Hoon Koo, Jun-Kyul Song, Sung-Hyuk Sunwoo, Dong Chan Kim, Dae-Hyeong Kim & Donghee Son

  2. Institute of Chemical Processes, Seoul National University (SNU), Seoul, Republic of Korea

    Ja Hoon Koo & Dae-Hyeong Kim

  3. Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, Republic of Korea

    Juyeon Kang, Junhwan Choi, Hong Jun Park, Wangwoo Nam & Sung Gap Im

  4. Biomedical Research Institute, Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), Seoul, Republic of Korea

    Sungjun Lee

  5. School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Yonsei University, Seoul, Republic of Korea

    Sungjun Lee

  6. Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, SNU, Seoul, Republic of Korea

    Jun-Kyul Song, Sung-Hyuk Sunwoo, Dong Chan Kim & Dae-Hyeong Kim

  7. Department of Chemical Engineering, Dankook University, Yongin, Republic of Korea

    Junhwan Choi

  8. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU), Suwon, Republic of Korea

    Jiyong Yoon & Donghee Son

  9. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, SNU, Seoul, Republic of Korea

    Dae-Hyeong Kim

  10. KI for NanoCentury, KAIST, Daejeon, Republic of Korea

    Sung Gap Im

  11. Center for Neuroscience Imaging Research, IBS, Suwon, Republic of Korea

    Donghee Son

  12. Department of Superintelligence Engineering, SKKU, Suwon, Republic of Korea

    Donghee Son

  13. KIST-SKKU Carbon-Neutral Research Center, SKKU, Suwon, Republic of Korea

    Donghee Son

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  1. Ja Hoon Koo
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Contributions

J.H.K., J.K., S.L., D.-H.K., S.G.I. and D.S. designed the experiments. J.H.K., J.K., S.L., J.-K.S., J.C., J.Y., H.J.P., S.-H.S., D.C.K., W.N., D.-H.K., S.G.I. and D.S. performed the experiments and analyses. J.H.K., J.K., S.L., D.-H.K., S.G.I. and D.S. drafted the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Dae-Hyeong Kim, Sung Gap Im or Donghee Son.

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Nature Electronics thanks Youfan Hu, Wen-Ya Lee and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Koo, J.H., Kang, J., Lee, S. et al. A vacuum-deposited polymer dielectric for wafer-scale stretchable electronics. Nat Electron 6, 137–145 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-023-00918-y

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