Inkjet printing of high performance transistors with micron order chemically set gaps

Abstract

This paper reports a 100% inkjet printed transistor with a short channel of approximately 1 μm with an operating speed up to 18.21 GHz. Printed electronics are a burgeoning area in electronics development, but are often stymied by the large minimum feature size. To combat this, techniques were developed to allow for the printings of much shorter transistor channels. The small gap size is achieved through the use of silver inks with different chemical properties to prevent mixing. The combination of the short channel and semiconducting carbon nanotubes (CNT) allows for an exceptional experimentally measured on/off ratio of 106. This all inkjet printed transistor allows for the fabrication of devices using roll-to-roll methodologies with no additional overhead compared to current state of the art production methods.