High Speed Roll-to-Roll Printable Transistor Enabled by a Pulsed Light Curable CNT Ink

Peter Mack Grubb,Hamed Dalir,Farzad Mokhtari Koushyar,Wenlong Xia,Aref Asghari,Travis Lenz,Gongwen Gan,Harish Subbaraman,Ray T Chen

doi:10.3390/jmmp3020033

Abstract

This paper reports the first high speed roll-to-roll printable transistor using a carbon nanotube (CNT) semiconducting layer. The transistor is made possible through the development of a pulsed light curable CNT ink compatible with typical drop on demand inkjet cartridges. This CNT ink uses a xylene based solvent with methanol, glycerin, and Triton X-100 modifiers to create an evaporable solution with appropriate absorption spectra for a mercury or xenon flash lamp with strong energy transmission in the UVB to mid visible light range, allowing the solution to absorb the energy from the flash lamp and evaporate. Transistor dimensions were defined by the capabilities of a typical roll-to-roll drop on demand cartridge. The final device demonstrated an on/off ratio of 104, representing performance similar to gravure printed devices. This represents the first CNT ink which can be used in high speed production methods without long thermal curing steps in the workflow.

Highlights

IntroductionInkjet-printed electronics use additive manufacturing (AM) methods combined with inkjet deposition technology developed for home printers to deposit various materials to form devices [1]
Inkjet-printed electronics use additive manufacturing (AM) methods combined with inkjet deposition technology developed for home printers to deposit various materials to form devices [1].These methods provide many avenues for driving down the cost of antenna systems and allow for flexible form factors which are very consumer friendly
carbon nanotube (CNT) compared to the initial bulk powder

Summary

Introduction

Inkjet-printed electronics use additive manufacturing (AM) methods combined with inkjet deposition technology developed for home printers to deposit various materials to form devices [1]. These methods provide many avenues for driving down the cost of antenna systems and allow for flexible form factors which are very consumer friendly. Several techniques have been used to apply these materials at production scale One such method is roll-to-roll (R2R) printing, which uses a constantly moving substrate with inkjet deposition print heads suspended above the substrate to rapidly apply a digitally defined design to the substrate [3]. Materials need to be cured within seconds in order to maintain a high enough speed to still qualify as production scale

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Conclusion