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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
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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 

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References

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