Inkjet-printed, stretchable and low voltage synaptic transistor array
Journal
Nature Communications
Date
2019.06.18
Abstract
Wearable and skin electronics benefit from mechanically soft and stretchable materials to
conform to curved and dynamic surfaces, thereby enabling seamless integration with the human
body. However, such materials are challenging to process using traditional microelectronics
techniques. In this work, stretchable transistor arrays are patterned exclusively from solution by
means of inkjet printing of polymers and carbon nanotubes. The additive, non-contact and
maskless nature of inkjet printing provides a simple, inexpensive and scalable route for stacking
and patterning these chemically-sensitive materials over large areas. The transistors, which are
stable at ambient conditions, display mobilities as high as 30 cm2V-1s-1 and currents per channel
width of 0.2 mA/cm at operation voltages as low as 1 V, owing to the ionic character of their
printed gate dielectric. Furthermore, these transistors with double-layer capacitive dielectric can
mimic the synaptic behavior of neurons, making them interesting for conformal brain-machine
interfaces and other wearable bioelectronics.