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Fully inkjet printed 2d material field effect heterostructures for wearable and textile electronics

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

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Authors

Carey, T 
Cacovich, S 
Ren, J 
Mansouri, A 

Abstract

Fully-printed electronics based on two-dimensional (2d) material heterostructures, such as field effect transistors, require robust and reproducible printed multi-layer stacks consisting of active channel, dielectric and conductive contact layers. Solution processing of graphite and other layered materials provides low-cost inks enabling printed electronic devices, for example by inkjet printing. However, the limited quality of the 2d material inks, the complexity of the layered arrangement for fully inkjet printed field effect heterostructures operating at room temperature and pressure, and the lack of a suitable dielectric 2d ink has impeded the fabrication of active field effect devices with fullyprinted 2d heterostructures. Moreover, electronic devices on textile (i.e. textile electronics) operate over a long time at room temperature, under strain and after several washing cycles. Exploiting the properties of inkjet printed electronics based on 2d materials for wearable and textile electronics requires robust, stable and washable printed devices. Here we demonstrate fully inkjet printed 2d material active heterostructures using graphene and hexagonal-boron nitride (h-BN) inks, and use them to fabricate all inkjet printed flexible and washable field effect transistors (FETs) on textile, reaching a field effect mobility of μ ~ 91 ± 29 cm2 V-1 s -1 on polyester fabric, at low operating voltages (< 5 V). The devices maintained their performance even under ∼ 4% strain and showed stable operation for periods up to 2 years, indicating the two-fold role of the h-BN layer as a flexible dielectric and encapsulant. Our graphene/h-BN FETs are washable up to 20 cycles, which is ideal for textile electronics. The viability of our process for printed and textile electronics is demonstrated by fully inkjet printing electronic circuits, such as reprogrammable volatile memory cells, complementary inverters, and OR logic gates with graphene/h-BN FETs.

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Keywords

printable electronics, flexible electronics, wearable electronics, field effect transistor, inkjet printing, graphene, hexagonal boron nitride, heterostructure, thin film transistor, textile, complementary inverter, memory cell, logic gates

Journal Title

Nature Communications

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Publisher

Springer Nature

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Sponsorship
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/L016087/1)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/P02534X/1)
The authors are grateful for funding provided by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), T.C. acknowledges funding from the ERC grant Hetero2D. F.T. acknowledges funding from Trinity College, Cambridge and the Newton Trust. S.C., G.D. and C.D. acknowledge funding from ERC under grant number 259619 76 PHOTO EM and from the EU under grant number 77 312483 ESTEEM2. A.M. and R.S. acknowledge funding from the EU Graphene Flagship (grant No. 696656).