Abstract
Smart textiles promise to have a significant impact on future wearable devices. Among the different approaches to combine electronic functionality and fabrics, the fabrication of active fibers results in the most unobtrusive integration and optimal compatibility between electronics and textile manufacturing equipment. The fabrication of electronic devices, in particular transistors on heavily curved, temperature sensitive, and rough textiles fibers is not easily achievable using standard clean room technologies. Hence, we evaluated different fabrication techniques and multiple fibers made from polymers, cotton, metal and glass exhibiting diameters down to 125 μm. The benchmarked techniques include the direct fabrication of thin-film structures using a low temperature shadow mask process, and the transfer of thin-film transistors (TFTs) fabricated on a thin (≈1 μm) flexible polymer membrane. Both approaches enable the fabrication of working devices, in particular the transfer method results in fully functional transistor fibers, with an on-off current ratio > 10 7 , a threshold voltage of ≈0.8 V , and a field effect mobility exceeding 7 c m 2 V − 1 s − 1 . Finally, the most promising fabrication approach is used to integrate a commercial nylon fiber functionalized with InGaZnO TFTs into a woven textile.
Highlights
Electronic or smart textiles (e-textiles) promise to have a significant impact in areas such as wearable computing or large-area electronics [1]
Subsequent to the insulation of the gate, 30 nm of amorphous IGZO was deposited using a radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering process based on a ceramic InGaZnO4 target and a pure Ar sputtering atmosphere at a pressure of 2 mTorr
Another possibility to overcome the process related limitations caused by the mechanical, chemical and geometrical properties of the different fibers is to fabricate thin-film transistors (TFTs) on a conventional flexible substrate and transfer them onto a fiber or yarn. This approach was evaluated by fabricating passivated IGZO based bottom gate inverted staggered TFTs on a Si wafer covered with a spin coated 400 nm Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) sacrificial layer and an evaporated 1 μm thin parylene membrane
Summary
Electronic or smart textiles (e-textiles) promise to have a significant impact in areas such as wearable computing or large-area electronics [1]. The integration of flexible stripes causes another fabric specific problem which is in particular important concerning the mass production of electronic textiles: Non-circular fibers such as planar plastic stripes are not compatible with standard weaving equipment, and are sensitive to twisting which calls for modified knitting or embroidery machines [15]. The solution to this problem is the fabrication of mechanically flexible active electronic devices directly on circular fibers. It is shown that high performance TFTs, on glass fibers with a radius of 62.5 μm and on polymer fibers with a radius of 125 μm, are fully functional and can be integrated into textiles for wearable or industrial applications
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