Inkjet Printing of Functional Electronic Memory Cells: A Step Forward to Green Electronics

Nowadays, the environmental issues surrounding the production of electronics, from the perspectives of both the materials used and the manufacturing process, are of major concern. The usage, storage, disposal protocol and volume of waste material continue to increase the environmental footprint of our increasingly “throw away society”. Almost ironically, society is increasingly involved in pollution prevention, resource consumption issues and post-consumer waste management. Clearly, a dichotomy between environmentally aware usage and consumerism exists. The current technology used to manufacture functional materials and electronic devices requires high temperatures for material deposition processes, which results in the generation of harmful chemicals and radiation. With such issues in mind, it is imperative to explore new electronic functional materials and new manufacturing pathways. Here, we explore the potential of additive layer manufacturing, inkjet printing technology which provides an innovative manufacturing pathway for functional materials (metal nanoparticles and polymers), and explore a fully printed two terminal electronic memory cell. In this work, inkjetable materials (silver (Ag) and poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)-poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS)) were first printed by a piezoelectric Epson Stylus P50 inkjet printer as stand-alone layers, and secondly as part of a metal (Ag)/active layer (PEDOT:PSS)/metal (Ag) crossbar architecture. The quality of the individual multi-layers of the printed Ag and PEDOT:PSS was first evaluated via optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Furthermore, an electrical characterisation of the printed memory elements was performed using an HP4140B picoammeter.