Wong W.S., Salleo A. Flexible Electronics: Materials and Applications

Springer, 2009. — 472 p. — ISBN: 978-0-387-74363-9.Flexible electronics is rapidly finding many main-stream applications where low-cost, ruggedness, light weight, unconventional form factors and ease of manufacturability are just some of the important advantages over their conventional rigid-substrate counterparts.
Flexible Electronics: Materials and Applications surveys the materials systems and processes that are used to fabricate devices that can be employed in a wide variety of applications, including flexible flat-panel displays, medical image sensors, photovoltaics, and electronic paper. Materials discussed range from polymeric semiconductors to nanotube transparent conductors, and the important characteristics of each system and their target applications are highlighted. An overview of the performance benchmarks for the different materials is given in order to allow a direct comparison of these different technologies. Furthermore, the devices and processes most suitable for given applications in flexible electronics are identified.Topics covered include:
An overview and history of flexible electronics;
Low-temperature processing and device integration on flexible substrates;
Solution-processable thin-film electronic devices and their properties;
Materials and device physics relevant to flexible electronics;
Mechanical and electrical characteristics of nano-scale materials on flexible platforms;
Printing and roll-to-roll processing for large-area electronics manufacturing;
Applications towards flexible displays, sensors, actuators, photovoltaics, radio-frequency identification, and micro-electro-mechanical systems.
Written by leading researchers in the field, Flexible Electronics: Materials and Applications serves as a reference for researchers, engineers, and students interested in the characteristics, capabilities, and limitations of these exciting materials and emerging applications.Overview of Flexible Electronics Technology.
History of Flexible Electronics.
Materials for Flexible Electronics.
Fabrication Technology for Flexible Electronics.
Outlook.Mechanical Theory of the Film-on-Substrate-Foil Structure: Curvature and Overlay Alignment in Amorphous Silicon Thin-Film Devices Fabricated on Free-Standing Foil Substrates.Theory.
Applications.
Conclusions.Low-temperature Amorphous and Nanocrystalline Silicon Materials and Thin-film Transistors.Low-temperature Amorphous and Nanocrystalline Silicon Materials.
Low-temperature Dielectrics.
Low-temperature Thin-film Transistor Devices.
Device Stability.
Conclusions and Future Prospective.Amorphous Silicon: Flexible Backplane and Display Application.Enabling Technologies for Flexible Backplanes and Displays.
Flexible Active Matrix Backplane Requirements for OLED Displays.
Flexible AMOLED Displays Using a-Si TFT Backplanes.
Flexible Electrophoretic Displays Fabricated using a-Si TFT Backplanes.
Outlook for Low-Temperature a-Si TFT for Flexible Electronics Manufacturing.Flexible Transition Metal Oxide Electronics and Imprint Lithography.Previous Work.
Properties of Transistor Materials.
Device Structures.
Fabrication on Flexible Substrates.
Flexible TMO Device Results.
Future Problems and Areas of Research.Materials and Novel Patterning Methods for Flexible Electronics.Materials Considerations for Flexible Electronics.
Print-Processing Options for Device Fabrication.
Performance and Characterization of Electronic Devices.
Printed Flexible Electronics.
Conclusions and Future Prospects.Sheet-Type Sensors and Actuators.Sheet-type Image Scanners.
Sheet-Type Braille Displays.Organic and Polymeric TFTs for Flexible Displays and Circuits.Important Organic TFT Parameters for Electronic Systems.
Active Matrix Displays.
Active Matrix OLED Displays.
Using Organic TFTs for Electronic Circuits.Semiconducting Polvthiophenes for Field-Effect Transistor Devices in Flexible Electronics: Synthesis and Structure Property Relationships.Polymerization of Thiophene Monomers.
Poly(3-Alkylthiophenes).
Polythiophene Structural Analogues.
Thienothiophene Polymers.Solution Cast Films of Carbon Nanotubes for Transparent Conductors and Thin Film Transistors.
Introduction: Nanoscale Carbon for Electronics, the Value Proposition.
Carbon NT Film Properties.
Fabrication Technologies.
Carbon NT Films as Conducting and Optically Transparent Material.
TFTs with Carbon Nanotube Conducting Channels.
Conclusions.Physics and Materials Issues of Organic Photovoltaics.Basic Operation.
Organic and Hybrid Solar Cell Architectures.
Materials.
Light Absorption.
Exciton Harvesting.
Exciton Dissociation.
Dissociating Geminate Pairs.
Heterojunction Energy Offsets.
Charge Transport and Recombination.
Nanostructures.
Efficiency Limits and Outlook.Bulk Heterojunction Solar Cells for Large-Area PV Fabrication on Flexible Substrates.
Introduction and Motivation.
The Concept of Bulk Heterojunction Solar Cells.
Challenges for Large-Area Processing.
Conclusions.
Substrates and Thin-Film Barrier Technology for Flexible Electronics.Barrier Requirements.
Thin-Film Barrier Technology.
Barrier-Device Integration.
Concluding Remarks References.