Fully inkjet-printed two-dimensional material field-effect heterojunctions for wearable and textile electronics

Tian Carey,Stefania Cacovich,Jong M Kim,Roman Sordan,Caterina Ducati,Giorgio Divitini,Chaoxia Wang,Aida Mansouri,Felice Torrisi,Jiesheng Ren

doi:10.1038/s41467-017-01210-2

Tian Carey, Stefania Cacovich + Show 8 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-01210-2

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Abstract

Fully printed wearable electronics based on two-dimensional (2D) material heterojunction structures also known as heterostructures, such as field-effect transistors, require robust and reproducible printed multi-layer stacks consisting of active channel, dielectric and conductive contact layers. Solution processing of graphite and other layered materials provides low-cost inks enabling printed electronic devices, for example by inkjet printing. However, the limited quality of the 2D-material inks, the complexity of the layered arrangement, and the lack of a dielectric 2D-material ink able to operate at room temperature, under strain and after several washing cycles has impeded the fabrication of electronic devices on textile with fully printed 2D heterostructures. Here we demonstrate fully inkjet-printed 2D-material active heterostructures with graphene and hexagonal-boron nitride (h-BN) inks, and use them to fabricate all inkjet-printed flexible and washable field-effect transistors on textile, reaching a field-effect mobility of ~91 cm2 V−1 s−1, at low voltage (<5 V). This enables fully inkjet-printed electronic circuits, such as reprogrammable volatile memory cells, complementary inverters and OR logic gates.

Highlights

Printed wearable electronics based on two-dimensional (2D) material heterojunction structures known as heterostructures, such as field-effect transistors, require robust and reproducible printed multi-layer stacks consisting of active channel, dielectric and conductive contact layers
There have been only few attempts to deposit field-effect transistors (FETs) onto textiles, such as by coating organic FETs on polymer fibres to create logic inverters[15], or spin-coating organic FETs on a textile modified with polyurethane/photo acryl layer, achieving μ of 0.05 cm[2] V−1 s−1 and on/off ~ 105, respectively[16]
Suitable inkjet printable ink formulations, which are produced by LPE19, 20 typically contain surfactants or polymer stabilisation agents, which can act as a source of contamination and may hinder device performance, they can positively impact the ink by acting as an adhesion or rheology modifier[21]

Summary

Introduction

Printed wearable electronics based on two-dimensional (2D) material heterojunction structures known as heterostructures, such as field-effect transistors, require robust and reproducible printed multi-layer stacks consisting of active channel, dielectric and conductive contact layers. Both printed metal oxides and organic polymer inks have limited charge mobility (μ) (~ 0.01 – 10 cm[2] V−1 s−1), which has restricted their prospects to specific applications such as radio-frequency identification tags and control electronics for active matrix displays[13, 14] Despite their huge potential, there have been only few attempts to deposit field-effect transistors (FETs) onto textiles, such as by coating organic FETs on polymer fibres to create logic inverters[15], or spin-coating organic FETs on a textile modified with polyurethane/photo acryl layer, achieving μ of 0.05 cm[2] V−1 s−1 and on/off ~ 105, respectively[16]

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