Issue 11, 2023

Large area roll-to-roll printed semiconducting carbon nanotube thin films for flexible carbon-based electronics

Abstract

A universal roll-to-roll (R2R) printing approach was developed to construct large area (8 cm × 14 cm) semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotube (sc-SWCNT) thin films on flexible substrates (such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET), paper, and Al foils) at a printing speed of 8 m min−1 using highly concentrated sc-SWCNT inks and crosslinked poly-4-vinylphenol (c-PVP) as the adhesion layer. Bottom-gated and top-gated flexible printed p-type TFTs based on R2R printed sc-SWCNT thin films exhibited good electrical properties with a carrier mobility of ∼11.9 cm2 V−1 s−1, Ion/Ioff ratios of ∼106, small hysteresis, and a subthreshold swing (SS) of 70–80 mV dec−1 at low gate operating voltages (±1 V), and excellent mechanical flexibility. Furthermore, the flexible printed complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) inverters demonstrated rail-to-rail voltage output characteristics under an operating voltage as low as VDD = −0.2 V, a voltage gain of 10.8 at VDD = −0.8 V, and power consumption as low as 0.056 nW at VDD = −0.2 V. To the best of our knowledge, the electrical properties of the printed SWCNT TFTs (such as Ion/Ioff ratio, mobility, operating voltage, and mechanical flexibility) and printed CMOS inverters based on the R2R printed sc-SWCNT active layer in this work are excellent compared to those of R2R printed SWCNT TFTs reported in the literature. Consequently, the universal R2R printing method reported in this work could promote the development of fully printed low-cost, large-area, high-output, and flexible carbon-based electronics.

Graphical abstract: Large area roll-to-roll printed semiconducting carbon nanotube thin films for flexible carbon-based electronics

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
23 Dec. 2022
Accepted
26 Janv. 2023
First published
27 Janv. 2023
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

Nanoscale, 2023,15, 5317-5326

Large area roll-to-roll printed semiconducting carbon nanotube thin films for flexible carbon-based electronics

J. Li, M. Li, Z. Chen, S. Shao, W. Gu, Y. Gu, Y. Fang and J. Zhao, Nanoscale, 2023, 15, 5317 DOI: 10.1039/D2NR07209B

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