Washington, Dec 14 (ANI): A new reasonably priced technique for fabricating large-scale flexible and stretchable backplanes shows promise to revolutionize a number of industries, making smart applications for 'plastic electronics' almost omnipresent, researchers say.
Among the applications that have been envisioned are electronic pads that could be folded away like paper, coatings that could monitor surfaces for cracks and other structural failures, medical bandages that could treat infections and food packaging that could detect spoilage.
From solar cells to pacemakers to clothing, the list of smart devices is both flexible and stretchable. First, however, suitable backplanes must be mass-produced in a cost-effective way.
Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have developed the new technique using semiconductor-enriched carbon nanotube solutions that yield networks of thin film transistors with superb electrical properties, including a charge carrier mobility that is dramatically higher than that of organic counterparts.
To demonstrate the utility of their carbon nanotube backplanes, the researchers constructed an artificial electronic skin (e-skin) capable of detecting and responding to touch.
"With our solution-based processing technology, we have produced mechanically flexible and stretchable active-matrix backplanes, based on fully passivated and highly uniform arrays of thin film transistors made from single walled carbon nanotubes that evenly cover areas of approximately 56 square centimeters," said Ali Javey, a faculty scientist in Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences Division and a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of California (UC) Berkeley.
"This technology, in combination with inkjet printing of metal contacts, should provide lithography-free fabrication of low-cost flexible and stretchable electronics in the future," Javey added. (ANI)
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