Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T08:06:39.689Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Electrical Contacts to Vertically Oriented Silicon Nano and Microdevices for Applications in Flexible Systems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2013

Mark Triplett
Affiliation:
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California, Davis Department of Physics, University of California, Davis, California 95616, USA
Hideki Nishimura
Affiliation:
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California, Davis Microelectronic Device Science Laboratory, Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Japan
Matthew Ombaba
Affiliation:
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California, Davis
M. Saif Islam
Affiliation:
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California, Davis
Get access

Abstract

Flexible devices utilizing crystalline semiconductor nano or microstructures materials are attractive for many applications. However, these materials are fabricated or grown in unusable forms for flexible systems due to their rigid crystalline mother substrates. We demonstrate a transfer printing technique for transferring vertical arrays of one-dimensional (1D) materials from mother substrates to flexible substrates with subsequent device fabrication steps to create flexible devices from these arrays. The transfer printing technique is based on vertical embossing of arrays of 1D materials into thermoplastic (Poly (methyl methacrylate) (PMMA)) transfer layers, while the device fabrication steps rely on encapsulation with insulating polymers and contact deposition. We investigated the use of flexible insulating layers like polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and polyurethane (PU) which are shown to be effective for encapsulation and contact isolation. Representative flexible resistive devices were created from these transferred arrays and insulating layers which showed a reversible tactile characteristic. Electronic characterization and flexibility testing was carried out to show the potential of these methods for enabling large-scale integrations of nano and microstructures into vertical and flexible packages.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Kim, D. H., Ahn, J. H., Choi, W. M., Kim, H. S., Kim, T. H., Song, J. Z., et al. ., “Stretchable and foldable silicon integrated circuits,” Science, vol. 320, pp. 507511, Apr 25 2008.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Plass, K. E., Filler, M. A., Spurgeon, J. M., Kayes, B. M., Maldonado, S., Brunschwig, B. S., et al. ., “Flexible Polymer-Embedded Si Wire Arrays,” Advanced Materials, vol. 21, pp. 325328, Jan 19 2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weisse, J. M., Lee, C. H., Kim, D. R., and Zheng, X. L., “Fabrication of Flexible and Vertical Silicon Nanowire Electronics,” Nano Letters, vol. 12, pp. 33393343, Jun 2012.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McAlpine, M. C., Ahmad, H., Wang, D. W., and Heath, J. R., “Highly ordered nanowire arrays on plastic substrates for ultrasensitive flexible chemical sensors,” Nature Materials, vol. 6, pp. 379384, May 2007.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chaudhry, A., Ramamurthi, V., Fong, E., and Islam, M. S., “Ultra-low contact resistance of epitaxially interfaced bridged silicon nanowires,” Nano Letters, vol. 7, pp. 15361541, Jun 2007.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lee, J. S., Islam, M. S., and Kim, S., “Direct formation of catalyst-free ZnO nanobridge devices on an etched Si substrate using a thermal evaporation method,” Nano Letters, vol. 6, pp. 14871490, Jul 12 2006.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Logeeswaran, V. J., Katzenmeyer, A. M., and Islam, M. S., “Harvesting and Transferring Vertical Pillar Arrays of Single-Crystal Semiconductor Devices to Arbitrary Substrates,” Ieee Transactions on Electron Devices, vol. 57, pp. 18561864, Aug 2010.Google Scholar
Ombaba, M. M., Logeeswaran, V. J., and Islam, M. S., “Electrically conducting film of silver sub-micron particles as mechanical and electrical interfaces for transfer printed micro- and nano-pillar devices,” Applied Physics a-Materials Science & Processing, vol. 111, pp. 251259, Apr 2013.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Logeeswaran, V. J., Oh, J., Nayak, A. P., Katzenmeyer, A. M., Gilchrist, K. H., Grego, S., et al. ., “A Perspective on Nanowire Photodetectors: Current Status, Future Challenges, and Opportunities,” Ieee Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, vol. 17, pp. 10021032, Jul-Aug 2011.Google Scholar
Shiu, S. C., Hung, S. C., Chao, J. J., and Lin, C. F., “Massive transfer of vertically aligned Si nanowire array onto alien substrates and their characteristics,” Applied Surface Science, vol. 255, pp. 85668570, Jul 30 2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar