PRINTING SINGLE-CRYSTAL FILMS

Abstract

ORGANIC FLEXIBLE ELECTRONICS —a class of circuits that scientists are developing for radio-frequency identification tags, sensors, and computer displays—can now be produced with a simple ink-jet printing method that’s faster and more chemically versatile than previous methods, according to a letter in Nature (DOI:10.1038/nature10313 ). A research team led by Tatsuo Hasegawa of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science & Technology, in Tsukuba, Japan, has successfully printed thin single-crystal films of a semiconducting benzothiophene-based molecule on a silicon dioxide surface. The researchers accomplished the feat by floating the molecule on top of an evaporating droplet on the patterned SiO 2 surface. Although single-crystal semiconducting thin films have been patterned onto surfaces previously, via vapor- and solution-phase approaches, the rapid new ink-jet method will broaden the range of organic compounds researchers can explore for use in flexible electronics, says Antonio Facchetti, ch...