Substrates for flexible electronics: A practical investigation on the electrical, film flexibility, optical, temperature, and solvent resistance properties

By V. Zardetto, Thomas M. Brown, A. Reale, Aldo Di Carlo. 2011

563 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Designing and developing flexible electronics requires a thorough investigation of the substrates available for the fabrication of devices. Here, we present a practical study on a variety of significant substrates: polyethylene terephthalate (PET), its heat-stabilized (HS) derivative, HS-PET, and polyethylene naphthalate (PEN) plastic insulating films; indium tin oxide (ITO)-coated ITO/PEN and ITO/PET transparent conducting films; rigid ITO/glass and FTO/glass substrates; stainless steel and titanium foils. We put the substrates through a range of tests these actually undergo during device fabrication to determine their optical, mechanical flexibility (under different types of tensile and compressive stress bending with and without a PEDOT:PSS conducting polymer layer), solvent resistance, stability to temperature treatment (conductivity and deformation), and to UV irradiation. We highlight issues and propose solutions to improve substrate response. The results and thresholds extracted reveal limitations and windows of opportunity useful for the designer of flexible optoelectronics in determining manufacturing processes and the final applications under everyday operation.

Subfields: Biomedical Engineering, Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Polymers and Plastics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/6868debb399fe129725ef19dc36ea8fa8ed5ffe3

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Biomedical Engineering

In Electrical and Electronic Engineering

In Polymers and Plastics

Citations in the corpus

Flexible Electronics: Status, Challenges and Opportunities (2020, background): “Inorganic, organic and perovskite solar cells have been fabricated on polymer substrates including polyethylene terephthalate and polyethylene naphthalate which have high transmittance (>85%), low permeability to water, and can bend up to 1°mm radius (Elli, 1986; Zardetto et al., 2011; Kaltenbrunner”
Technologies for Printing Sensors and Electronics Over Large Flexible Substrates: A Review (2015, background): “of the ink from system to substrate [56], [57].”
Flexible electronics under strain: a review of mechanical characterization and durability enhancement strategies (2016, background): “Metal foils are commonly introduced when high-temperature processing is a requirement [64, 66, 68].”