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Solution-processed oxide thin film transistors on shape memory polymer enabled by photochemical self-patterning

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Abstract

Solution-processed metal oxide electronics on flexible substrates can enable applications from military to health care. Due to limited thermal budgets and mismatched coefficients of thermal expansion between oxides and substrates, achieving good performance in solution-processed oxide films remains a challenge. Additionally, the use of traditional photolithographic processes is incompatible with low-cost, high-throughput roll-to-roll processing. Here, we demonstrate solution-deposited oxide thin film transistors (TFTs) on a shape memory polymer substrate, which offers unique control of final device shape and modulus. The key enabling step is the exposure of the precursor film to UV-ozone through a shadow mask to perform patterning and photochemical conversion simultaneously. These TFTs exhibit mobility up to 160 cm2/(V s), subthreshold swing as low as 110 mV/dec, and threshold voltage between −2 and 0 V, while maintaining compatibility with a flexible form factor at processing temperatures below 250 °C.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors thank Dr. Robert Wallace for the use of the spectroscopic ellipsometer, Michael Womble for assistance in XRD measurements, and Sean Dillon and James Tran for help in FTIR measurements. This work is supported in part by the Center for Engineering Innovation and by SPARC. W.V. acknowledges support from the DARPA Young Faculty Award and DARPA Director’s Fellowship (No. D13AP00049). J.W.P.H. acknowledges the support from Texas Instruments Distinguished Chair in Nanoelectronics.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, Texas, 75080, USA

    Trey B. Daunis, Diego Barrera, Gerardo Gutierrez-Heredia, Jian Wang & Julia W. P. Hsu

  2. Centro de Investigaciones en Optica, León, Guanajuato, 37150, México

    Gerardo Gutierrez-Heredia

  3. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Department of Bioengineering, The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, Texas, 75080, USA

    Ovidio Rodriguez-Lopez

  4. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Department of Bioengineering, The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, Texas, 75080, USA

    Walter E. Voit

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  1. Trey B. Daunis
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  2. Diego Barrera
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Correspondence to Trey B. Daunis.

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Daunis, T.B., Barrera, D., Gutierrez-Heredia, G. et al. Solution-processed oxide thin film transistors on shape memory polymer enabled by photochemical self-patterning. Journal of Materials Research 33, 2454–2462 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2018.296

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