Recently,Professor Zhang Min and Fan Lingchong, the corresponding author and the first author of our research group, published the research results entitled “stretchable carbon nanotube thin film transporter arrays realized by a universal transferable band aid method” on IEEE Transactions on electron devices.
In this paper, a transferable band aid method is proposed to realize the carbon nanotube (CNT) thin film transistor (TFT) array with excellent electrical properties and high extensibility. The array has excellent transferability, conformal and versatility. The device performance does not degrade after 2000 times of 100% stretching. In addition, its mechanical properties are simulated and analyzed. This band aid structure can be transferred to elastic and unconventional substrates, which provides a new solution for transforming flexible devices into stretchable devices.
Stretchable electronics offer new possibilities for humans and artificial intelligent robots, in which stretchable transistors are the core components. Either geometric engineering or intrinsic material integration has its own limitations for realizing high-performance stretchable transistors. In this work, by combining the advantages of both approaches, we propose a novel transferable-Band-Aid method to realize stretchable carbon nanotube (CNT) thin-film transistor (TFT) arrays with high electrical performance and stretchability simultaneously. This method uses polyimide (PI) tapes to transfer devices to elastomer substrates. The mobility and ON/OFF current ratio of the stretchable CNT-TFTs reach 24cm2/V·s and1.1×105, respectively. After stretched by 50% and 100% for 2000 cycles, the device performance is maintained on both polydimethylsiloxane and Ecoflex substrates. Neither obvious degradation on electrical properties nor displacement between the PI and the elastomer is observed during the stretching. The mechanical performance of the stretchable devices has also been verified and analyzed by simulation using ANSYS. Young’s modulus ratio between the stiff island and the elastomer substrate influences stretchability and stress distribution of the devices. The simulation result provides a guideline for realizing highly robust stretchable devices. The Band-Aid structure could generally be stuck to most elastomer substrates, providing a new solution to convert flexible devices into stretchable devices universally. The demonstrations of the design exhibit its excellent transferability, conformal capability, and versatility, showing its application potentials in wearable devices, biological-human interfaces and Internet of Things.
