Fluorescent tags to visualize defects in Al2O3 thin films grown using atomic layer deposition

Defects and cracks in thin film barriers that are coated on polymers allow the leakage of reactive species through the polymer substrate. Fluorescent tags have been developed to visualize defects and cracks in thin film barriers and to inspect rapidly the barrier quality with minimal sample preparation. For Al₂O₃ films with a thickness of 25 nm deposited on polyethylene naphthalate polymer substrates using atomic layer deposition techniques, the fluorescent tags have identified cracks ~ 20 nm in width after applied strain and have observed individual defects as small as ~ 200 nm in diameter.     

The fracture of brittle thin films on compliant substrates in flexible displays

One mechanical issue in flexible organic light emitting displays (OLED) is the fracture of extremely thin brittle conducting transparent oxide films deposited on thin flexible substrates. Understanding the behaviour of these films under flexed condition is essential for designer of flexible OLED. Controlled buckling experiments on the film and substrate have been designed to study the fracture of the films under both tension and compression. Fracture of the film is superficially similar in both tension and compression. However, under tension a channelling crack is formed, while under compression, the film delaminates, buckles and cracks in a tunnelling motion. The fracture toughness of the film and the delamination toughness have been estimated from these experiments. Design to maximise the flexibility of the device is discussed.     

High‐Performance Flexible Photodetectors based on High‐Quality Perovskite Thin Films by a Vapor–Solution Method

Organometal halide perovskites are new light‐harvesting materials for lightweight and flexible optoelectronic devices due to their excellent optoelectronic properties and low‐temperature process capability. However, the preparation of high‐quality perovskite films on flexible substrates has still been a great challenge to date. Here, a novel vapor–solution method is developed to achieve uniform and pinhole‐free organometal halide perovskite films on flexible indium tin oxide/poly(ethylene terephthalate) substrates. Based on the as‐prepared high‐quality perovskite thin films, high‐performance flexible photodetectors (PDs) are constructed, which display a nR value of 81 A W^?1 at a low working voltage of 1 V, three orders higher than that of previously reported flexible perovskite thin‐film PDs. In addition, these flexible PDs exhibit excellent flexural stability and durability under various bending situations with their optoelectronic performance well retained. This breakthrough on the growth of high‐quality perovskite thin films opens up a new avenue to develop high‐performance flexible optoelectronic devices.     

Nanomechanical characterization of thermally evaporated Cr thin films — FE analysis of the substrate effect

We study the substrate effect on the deformation and hardness behaviour of chromium thin films using nanoindentation technique. Two different substrates namely Si (100) and AISI-304 SS are used in order to obtain a soft film on a hard substrate and a hard film on a soft substrate combination. Typical hardness variations for the two combinations are obtained. It is also observed that Cr thin films deposited on two different substrates deform distinctly. Radial cracks are found to develop in the case of Cr film on Si whereas circumferential cracks are produced in the case of Cr film on SS substrate. Using 2-D finite element analysis, it is found that the substrate not only affects the development of plastic zone but also the stress distribution in the films which results in observed distinct hardness and deformation behaviour.     

Deposition of conductive materials on textile and polymeric flexible substrates

This paper describes the study, analysis and selection of textile and similar materials to be used as flexible substrates for thin conductive film deposition, in the context of integrating electronics into textiles. Kapton^® polyimide was chosen as reference substrate material, was characterized regarding mechanical and electrical properties and was used as a basis for a comparison with several textile substrates. Samples were fabricated using physical vapour deposition (thermal evaporation) to deposit a thin layer of aluminium on top of Kapton and textile substrates. The measurement of electrical resistance of the thin aluminum films was carried out using the Kelvin method. To characterize the mechanical behaviour of the substrate and aluminum film, several mechanical tests were performed and results were compared between Kapton and these textile materials. The chemical composition of the textile substrates and aluminum films as well as the continuity of the films was characterized. This selection process identified the material that was closer to the behaviour of polyimide, a flexible, but non-elastic woven textile coated on both sides with PVC.     

Formation and characterization of silicon films on flexible polymer substrates

Polysilicon thin film transistors on flexible substrates are of considerable interest for applications in flexible displays. This paper investigates the formation of nanocrystalline silicon on flexible, transparent polymer substrates. An 800-nm layer of amorphous silicon was deposited on a polyimide substrate followed by a 20-nm layer of aluminum. Samples were rapid thermal annealed at 900 °C for 20 s, forming silicon nanocrystallites in a porous amorphous silicon film. The films were analyzed using Rutherford backscattering spectrometry, Raman Spectroscopy and cross-section transmission electron microscopy. A mechanism is proposed for the formation of silicon nanocrystallites and pores in the a-Si layer.     

Advances in piezoelectric thin films for acoustic biosensors,acoustofluidics and lab-on-chip applications

Recently, piezoelectric thin films including zinc oxide (ZnO) and aluminium nitride (AlN) have found a broad range of lab-on-chip applications such as biosensing, particle/cell concentrating, sorting/patterning, pumping, mixing, nebulisation and jetting. Integrated acoustic wave sensing/microfluidic devices have been fabricated by depositing these piezoelectric films onto a number of substrates such as silicon, ceramics, diamond, quartz, glass, and more recently also polymer, metallic foils and bendable glass/silicon for making flexible devices. Such thin film acoustic wave devices have great potential for implementing integrated, disposable, or bendable/flexible lab-on-a-chip devices into various sensing and actuating applications. This paper discusses the recent development in engineering high performance piezoelectric thin films, and highlights the critical issues such as film deposition, MEMS processing techniques, control of deposition/processing parametres, film texture, doping, dispersion effects, film stress, multilayer design, electrode materials/designs and substrate selections. Finally, advances in using thin film devices for lab-on-chip applications are summarised and future development trends are identified.     

A novel solution-stamping process for preparation of a highly conductive aluminum thin film

A novel solution-stamping process for the preparation of a highly conductive aluminum thin film on both rigid and flexible substrates is proposed. The superior electrical properties of Al thin films fabricated by the solution-stamping process compared to silver and gold films fabricated from colloidal nanoparticles are experimentally demonstrated, and their applications in electronic circuits on rigid and flexible substrates and to organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) are investigated.     

薄膜太阳电池用TCO薄膜制造技术及其特性研究

阐述了玻璃衬底、柔性衬底透明导电氧化物薄膜(Transparent conductive oxides-TCO)以及硅基薄膜太阳电池应用方面的最新研究成果。绒面结构可以提高薄膜太阳电池效率和稳定性并降低生产成本。磁控溅射技术和LP-MOCVD技术是制造绒面结构ZnO-TCO薄膜(例如"弹坑"状和"类金字塔"状表面)的主流生长技术;高迁移率TCO薄膜(IMO、IWO、ZnO∶Ga等)以及柔性衬底TCO薄膜是研究开发的重点。     

Epitaxial Lift‐Off of Centimeter‐Scaled Spinel Ferrite Oxide Thin Films for Flexible Electronics

Mechanical flexibility of electronic devices has attracted much attention from research due to the great demand in practical applications and rich commercial value. Integration of functional oxide materials in flexible polymer materials has proven an effective way to achieve flexibility of functional electronic devices. However, the chemical and mechanical incompatibilities at the interfaces of dissimilar materials make it still a big challenge to synthesize high‐quality single‐crystalline oxide thin film directly on flexible polymer substrates. This study reports an improved method that is employed to successfully transfer a centimeter‐scaled single‐crystalline LiFe₅O₈ thin film on polyimide substrate. Structural characterizations show that the transferred films have essentially no difference in comparison with the as‐grown films with respect to the microstructure. In particular, the transferred LiFe₅O₈ films exhibit excellent magnetic properties under various mechanical bending statuses and show excellent fatigue properties during the bending cycle tests. These results demonstrate that the improved transfer method provides an effective way to compose single‐crystalline functional oxide thin films onto flexible substrates for applications in flexible and wearable electronics.     

Cover Picture: High‐Performance Organic Single‐Crystal Transistors on Flexible Substrates (Adv. Mater. 17/2006)

The cover shows a comparison of thin and thick rubrene single crystals where the flexibility of the thin rubrene crystals is clearly illustrated. On p. 2320, Yang, Bao, and co‐workers report that high performance flexible transistors on plastic substrates fabricated by using these rubrene “thin‐film” single‐crystals demonstrate mobility as high as 4.6 cm² Vs^–1 and ON/OFF ratios of approximately 10⁶.     

Inorganic Thin Film Deposition and Application on Organic Polymer Substrates

This review details the emerging area of inorganic thin film coatings on polymer substrates, from examples of applications through to the fabrication processes and the underlying growth mechanism(s). Of particular focus is the use of physical vapor deposition to deposit thin metal and/or metal oxide films onto polymeric materials. This primary focus highlights an area of research, that is, gaining in popularity, as researchers attempt to provide insight into the adaption of a well‐established manufacturing process to be compatible with the ever expanding range of polymer substrates. The motivation for doing so comes from the evolution of existing industry (i.e., the semi‐conductor sector) to fabricate new devices (i.e., flexible electronics). In addition, the research challenges faced in achieving evaporated and sputtered thin film coatings on polymeric substrates, such as mechanical and thermal considerations will be discussed.

     

Graphene oxide thin films for flexible nonvolatile memory applications

There has been strong demand for novel nonvolatile memory technology for low-cost, large-area, and low-power flexible electronics applications. Resistive memories based on metal oxide thin films have been extensively studied for application as next-generation nonvolatile memory devices. However, although the metal oxide based resistive memories have several advantages, such as good scalability, low-power consumption, and fast switching speed, their application to large-area flexible substrates has been limited due to their material characteristics and necessity of a high-temperature fabrication process. As a promising nonvolatile memory technology for large-area flexible applications, we present a graphene oxide based memory that can be easily fabricated using a room temperature spin-casting method on flexible substrates and has reliable memory performance in terms of retention and endurance. The microscopic origin of the bipolar resistive switching behavior was elucidated and is attributed to rupture and formation of conducting filaments at the top amorphous interface layer formed between the graphene oxide film and the top Al metal electrode, via high-resolution transmission electron microscopy and in situ X-ray photoemission spectroscopy. This work provides an important step for developing understanding of the fundamental physics of bipolar resistive switching in graphene oxide films, for the application to future flexible electronics.     

Large scale, highly conductive and patterned transparent films of silver nanowires on arbitrary substrates and their application in touch screens

The application of silver nanowire films as transparent conductive electrodes has shown promising results recently. In this paper, we demonstrate the application of a simple spray coating technique to obtain large scale, highly uniform and conductive silver nanowire films on arbitrary substrates. We also integrated a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-assisted contact transfer technique with spray coating, which allowed us to obtain large scale high quality patterned films of silver nanowires. The transparency and conductivity of the films was controlled by the volume of the dispersion used in spraying and the substrate area. We note that the optoelectrical property, σ(DC)/σ(Op), for various films fabricated was in the range 75-350, which is extremely high for transparent thin film compared to other candidate alternatives to doped metal oxide film. Using this method, we obtain silver nanowire films on a flexible polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate with a transparency of 85% and sheet resistance of 33 Ω/sq, which is comparable to that of tin-doped indium oxide (ITO) on flexible substrates. In-depth analysis of the film shows a high performance using another commonly used figure-of-merit, Φ(TE). Also, Ag nanowire film/PET shows good mechanical flexibility and the application of such a conductive silver nanowire film as an electrode in a touch panel has been demonstrated.     

Flexible Film Bulk Acoustic Wave Filters toward Radiofrequency Wireless Communication

This paper presents a flexible radiofrequency filter with a central frequency of 2.4 GHz based on film bulk acoustic wave resonators (FBARs). The flexible filter consists of five air‐gap type FBARs, each comprised of an aluminum nitride piezoelectric thin film sandwiched between two thin‐film electrodes. By transfer printing the inorganic film structure from a silicon wafer to an ultrathin polyimide substrate, high electrical performance and mechanical flexibility are achieved. The filter has a peak insertion loss of ?1.14 dB, a 3 dB bandwidth of 107 MHz, and a temperature coefficient of frequency of ?27 ppm °C^?1. The passband and roll‐off characteristics of the flexible filter are comparable with silicon‐based commercial products. No electrical performance degradation and mechanical failure occur under bending tests with a bending radius of 2.5 mm or after 100 bending cycles. The flexible FBAR filters are believed to be promising candidates for future flexible wireless communication systems.     

Fabrication of flexible polymer dispersed liquid crystal films using conducting polymer thin films as the driving electrodes

Conducting polymers exhibit good mechanical and interfacial compatibility with plastic substrates. We prepared an optimized coating formulation based on poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) and 3-(trimethoxysilyl)propyl acrylate and fabricated a transparent electrode on poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) substrate. The surface resistances and transmittance of the prepared thin films were 500-600 Ω/□ and 87% at 500 nm, respectively. To evaluate the performance of the conducting polymer electrode, we fabricated a five-layer flexible polymer-dispersed liquid crystal (PDLC) device as a PET-PEDOT-PDLC-PEDOT-PET flexible film. The prepared PDLC device exhibited a low driving voltage (15 VAC), high contrast ratio (60:1), and high transmittance in the ON state (60%), characteristics that are comparable with those of conventional PDLC film based on indium tin oxide electrodes. The fabrication of conducting polymer thin films as the driving electrodes in this study showed that such films can be used as a substitute for an indium tin oxide electrode, which further enhances the flexibility of PDLC film.     

Studies on thin film materials on acrylics for optical applications

Deposition of durable thin film coatings by vacuum evaporation on acrylic substrates for optical applications is a challenging job. Films crack upon deposition due to internal stresses and leads to performance degradation. In this investigation, we report the preparation and characterization of single and multi-layer films of TiO₂, CeO₂, Substance2 (E Merck, Germany), Al₂O₃, SiO₂ and MgF₂ by electron beam evaporation on both glass and PMMA substrates. Optical micrographs taken on single layer films deposited on PMMA substrates did not reveal any cracks. Cracks in films were observed on PMMA substrates when the substrate temperature exceeded 80°C. Antireflection coatings of 3 and 4 layers have been deposited and characterized. Antireflection coatings made on PMMA substrate using Substance2 (H2) and SiO₂ combination showed very fine cracks when observed under microscope. Optical performance of the coatings has been explained with the help of optical micrographs.     

退火条件对磁控溅射MgO-Ag3Sb-Sb2O4柔性薄膜热电性能的影响

MgAgSb是一种具有潜力且元素储量相对丰富的室温热电材料, 有望用于构建高性能可穿戴温差电池。本研究尝试在聚酰亚胺(PI)基底上磁控溅射制备MgAgSb薄膜, 并系统研究退火条件对其热电性能的影响。结果表明样品未形成纯相的MgAgSb柔性热电薄膜, 而是形成了由Ag₃Sb、MgO及Sb₂O₄多相组成的柔性薄膜, 其中Ag₃Sb起主要热电功能。不同气氛退火可以显著提升MgO-Ag₃Sb-Sb₂O₄ (Mg-Ag-Sb)柔性薄膜的热电性能, 其中真空处理性能最佳。在真空条件下, 随着退火温度升高, 柔性薄膜的热电性能呈现先增加后减少的趋势, 当退火温度为573 K时热电性能最佳, 室温附近功率因子达到74.16 μW∙m^-1∙K^-2。并且, 薄膜表现出较好的柔性, 弯曲900次后, 电导率仅变化了14%。本研究为MgAgSb柔性热电薄膜的制备及可穿戴应用提供了参考。     

An elastic-plastic shear lag model for fracture of layered coatings

We present a phenomenological model describing cracking under uniaxial tensile strain of a brittle thin film on a deformable substrate with an elastic-plastic interface layer. The model yields an analytical solution predicting average crack density and average crack opening as a function of applied strain and material parameters. The model has been applied to experimental data for cracks in thin SiO_x films on PET substrates.     

Wavy Architecture Thin‐Film Transistor for Ultrahigh Resolution Flexible Displays

A novel wavy‐shaped thin‐film‐transistor (TFT) architecture, capable of achieving 70% higher drive current per unit chip area when compared with planar conventional TFT architectures, is reported for flexible display application. The transistor, due to its atypical architecture, does not alter the turn‐on voltage or the OFF current values, leading to higher performance without compromising static power consumption. The concept behind this architecture is expanding the transistor's width vertically through grooved trenches in a structural layer deposited on a flexible substrate. Operation of zinc oxide (ZnO)‐based TFTs is shown down to a bending radius of 5 mm with no degradation in the electrical performance or cracks in the gate stack. Finally, flexible low‐power LEDs driven by the respective currents of the novel wavy, and conventional coplanar architectures are demonstrated, where the novel architecture is able to drive the LED at 2 × the output power, 3 versus 1.5 mW, which demonstrates the potential use for ultrahigh resolution displays in an area efficient manner.