The future of electronic materials is…degradable!

Abstract

In the last three decades, electronics has passed from a newborn discipline to a consistent part of the material science world. This evolution expands thanks to the rapid development of innovative materials and the quick improvements in their properties. This perspective goes through the last applications, developments, and opportunities that the literature shows about disintegrable or degradable materials for electronic applications. After a brief introduction overviewing the”issue” of plastic pollution and how the literature has taken this subject, the initial discussion covers the disintegrability from a chemistry point of view and presents insights into the bonding structure by ending in a spread vision of the last used materials. This last part is divided into two main areas: supporting materials, intended as the ones which embed the device and bear the whole system and active materials, being in this case, conductive or semiconductive. The vision has the fil rouge of degradability or disintegrability and is strictly related to the last quinquennium, highlighting the most present and cited materials that are opening the way for the future of electronics.