Review of Printed Electrodes for Flexible Devices

Xing Wu,Zewei Luo,Quanling Li,Xiyue Tian,Jiayan Zhang,Fei Qiao,Guihong Li,Qianhao Li,Jian Zhang

doi:10.3389/fmats.2018.00077

Xing Wu, Zewei Luo

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fmats.2018.00077

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Abstract

Printed electronic technologies draw tremendous attention worldwide due to their ability to surpass the limitations of traditional high-cost electronics based on rigid silicon and manufacture various devices on flexible substrates. As a critical component of flexible electronics, electrodes fabricated on soft, bendable and stretchable substrates are of great importance. Based on the fabrication process, this paper classifies the mainstream technologies into two categories: top-down and bottom-up. To be specific, the top-down technology includes physical evaporation methods, printing technologies and soft lithography and the bottom-up technology involves polymer-assisted-metal-deposition methods and ion-exchange methods, respectively. In contrast to the top-down technology that transfers the functional ink onto the substrate directly, the bottom-up methods achieve great improvement in the adhesion between the substrates and the metal electrodes. In the end of the paper, the challenges for top-down technologies, including costs, synthesis and choice of ink for printing technologies, the limited choice of metal for bottom-up technologies and the mass production of these methods are also discussed.

Highlights

Increasing demand for high performance devices, drives the development of alternative, or novel structures of devices and the use of new materials (Liu et al, 2017; Wang et al, 2018)
In top-down methods of the fabrication process, physical evaporation and deposition requires the metal to evaporate in order to be deposited, and the printing technology requires a sintering process to improve conductivity
The ink plays an important role in printing technologies because of its responsibility of solution, conductivity, and adhesion to the substrates

Summary

Review of Printed Electrodes for Flexible Devices

Quanling Li 1†, Jiayan Zhang 1†, Qianhao Li 1, Guihong Li 2, Xiyue Tian 1, Zewei Luo 1, Fei Qiao 2, Xing Wu 1* and Jian Zhang 1*. Printed electronic technologies draw tremendous attention worldwide due to their ability to surpass the limitations of traditional high-cost electronics, based on rigid silicon, and the manufacturing of various devices on flexible substrates. As a critical component of flexible electronics, electrodes fabricated on soft, bendable, and stretchable substrates are of great importance. Top-down technologies include physical evaporation methods, printing technologies and soft lithography, while bottom-up technologies involve polymer-assisted-metal-deposition methods and ion-exchange methods, respectively. In contrast to top-down technologies that transfer functional ink onto substrates directly, the bottom-up method achieves a great improvement in the adhesion between substrates and metal electrodes. The challenges of top-down technologies, including cost, synthesis, and choice of ink for printing technologies, the limited choice of metal for bottom-up technologies and the mass production of these methods, are discussed

INTRODUCTION

Conventional Technologies

Printing Technologies

Soft Lithography

SUMMARY

Low T

Poor to very good