Ultraflexible all-organic complementary transistors and inverters based on printed polymers

Abstract

Organic electronics has been steadily evolving, with improving performances, including unrivaled mechanical properties. One of the main technological trends aims at thinner and lighter form factors, toward the realization of ultraflexible and conformable large-area electronic devices, capable of withstanding harsh mechanical stresses and therefore finding applications where rigid or brittle technologies would fail. Pursuing this objective, a critical role is known to be played by the substrate, whose thickness needs to be reduced as much as possible while maintaining its processability. Ultrathin substrates and a neutral plane strategy have therefore been exploited to realize ultrathin organic devices; however, ultraflexible complementary circuits based on printed organic semiconductors, realized by means of high-throughput and large-area techniques, have not been realized so far. In this work, all-polymer organic field effect transistors and complementary inverters have been printed onto a micrometer-thin parylene substrate, subsequently also used as a top isolation layer in order to place the active components in the neutral plane of stresses. These devices show appropriate low voltage operation, with supply voltages as low as 2 V, and retain stable and uniform performances upon the application of harsh mechanical stresses, such as rolling and crumpling. These results represent the first demonstration of semi-transparent and fully organic crumpable printed electronics, and pave the way toward the realization of more complex complementary logic circuits, laying the foundation for their widespread and cost-effective integration into consumer products.