Highly Robust Neutral Plane Oxide TFTs Withstanding 0.25 mm Bending Radius for Stretchable Electronics

Advancements in thin-film transistor (TFT) technology have extended to electronics that can withstand extreme bending or even folding. Although the use of ultrathin plastic substrates has achieved considerable advancement towards this end, free-standing ultrathin plastics inevitably suffer from mechanical instability and are very difficult to handle during TFT fabrication. Here, in addition to the use of a 1.5 μm-thick polyimide (PI) substrate, a 1.5 μm-thick PI film is also deposited on top of the TFT devices to ensure that the devices are located at the neutral plane of the two PI films for high folding stability. For mechanical support during TFT fabrication up to the deposition of the top PI film, the PI substrate is spin coated on top of a carrier glass that is coated with a mixture of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene oxide (GO). The mixture of CNT and GO facilitates mechanical detachment of the neutral plane (NP) TFTs from the carrier glass before they are transferred to a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) substrate as islands. Being located in the neutral bending plane, the NP TFT can be transferred to the PDMS without performance degradation and exhibit excellent mechanical stability after stretching the PDMS substrate up to a 25% elastic elongation.