High density integration of stretchable inorganic thin film transistors with excellent performance and reliability

• Published in: Nature communications 2022-08, Vol.13 (1), p.4963-4963, Article 4963
• Main Authors: Oh, Himchan, Oh, Ji-Young, Park, Chan Woo, Pi, Jae-Eun, Yang, Jong-Heon, Hwang, Chi-Sun
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 639/166/987; 639/301/1005/1007; 639/301/119/1000; Brittleness; Circuits; Deformation; Density; Electronic circuits; Electronics; Electronics industry; Embedding; Formability; Humanities and Social Sciences; Integration; Mechanical stimuli; multidisciplinary; Reliability; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Semiconductor devices; Semiconductors; Serpentine; Strain; Stretchability; Strings; Thin film transistors; Thin films; Transistors
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-32672-8

Transistors with inorganic semiconductors have superior performance and reliability compared to organic transistors. However, they are unfavorable for building stretchable electronic products due to their brittle nature. Because of this drawback, they have mostly been placed on non-stretchable parts to avoid mechanical strain, burdening the deformable interconnects, which link these rigid parts, with the strain of the entire system. Integration density must therefore be sacrificed when stretchability is the first priority because the portion of stretchable wirings should be raised. In this study, we show high density integration of oxide thin film transistors having excellent performance and reliability by directly embedding the devices into stretchable serpentine strings to defeat such trade-off. The embedded transistors do not hide from deformation and endure strain up to 100% by themselves; thus, integration density can be enhanced without sacrificing the stretchability. We expect that our approach can create more compact stretchable electronics with high-end functionality than before. Transistors with inorganic semiconductors have superior performance than organics. However, they are brittle and thus unfavorable for building deformable electronics. Here, authors directly embed such inorganic thin film transistors into serpentine strings to realize highly stretchable and miniaturized electronic circuits.