From stretchable and healable to self-healing semiconducting polymers: design and their TFT devices

Abstract

Flexible thin-film transistor (TFT) devices are essential elements of future flexible electronics owing to their promising applications in various fields ranging from lighting and display, sensors, communication, and smart textiles to medical devices. Currently, these state-of-the-art electronic devices are not only struggling from “brittle” to “stretchable”, but are also expected to advance to “autonomous self-healable”. However, to integrate these features into flexible and stretchable devices, the first requirement to consider is compatibility between their mechanical and electrical properties given that the self-healing ability is associated with mechanical compliance but is incompatible with existing electronic technologies. Therefore, the first step closer to achieve is due to the recent progress in the field of stretchable semiconducting polymers, which thus far consists of two strategies: (1) structural engineering of conjugated polymers and (2) physical blending of conjugated polymers in soft insulating polymers. Together with the emphasis on additional functionalization in novel modified-semiconducting materials to boost large mechanical deformation without damaging their electronic properties, structural engineering can also provide targeted features (i.e., self-healing ability). Finally, we highlight the chemical aspects of self-healing materials (from non-covalent to reversible covalent-based mechanisms) that have been successfully integrated in TFT devices.