Fully Printed Inverters using Metal-Oxide Semiconductor and Graphene Passives on Flexible Substrates

Abstract

Printed and flexible metal-oxide transistor technology has recently demonstrated great promise due to its high performance and robust mechanical stability. Herein, fully printed inverter structures using electrolyte-gated oxide transistors on a flexible polyimide (PI) substrate are discussed in detail. Conductive graphene ink is printed as the passive structures and interconnects. The additive printed transistors on PI substrates show an (Formula presented.) ratio of (Formula presented.) and show mobilities similar to the state-of-the-art printed transistors on rigid substrates. Printed meander structures of graphene are used as pull-up resistances in a transistor–resistor logic to create fully printed inverters. The printed and flexible inverters show a signal gain of 3.5 and a propagation delay of 30 ms. These printed inverters are able to withstand a tensile strain of 1.5% following more than 200 cycles of mechanical bending. The stability of the electrical direct current (DC) properties has been observed over a period of 5 weeks. These oxide transistor-based fully printed inverters are relevant for digital printing methods which could be implemented into roll-to-roll processes.