FOXIP

Functional OXIdes Printed on Polymers and Paper

Despite strong market pull, printed electronics is advancing slow because of several technology issues. One of the key challenges is the deposition of electronic materials on traditional printing substrates like paper and polymers foils, which are temperature-sensitive substrates with excessive roughness and dimensional instability.

The project aims to solve one key challenge of printed electronics: to demonstrate an oxide-based thin film transistor (TFT) printed on paper and PET, and even biodegradable foils with an industrially relevant printing technique. Amorphous oxide semiconductors are next-generation semiconductors that are chosen due to higher mobilities and better stability as compared to organic semiconductors, whereas TFT is an electronic switch and basic building block of printed circuits, displays and sensors.

A scientific breakthrough is anticipated when applying rapid photonic curing at specific wavelengths in order to activate and sinter functional oxide (semiconductor, oxide dielectric or even transparent contact if non-visibility is desired) while the substrate bulk remains unaffected. Using light-curable inks it should be possible to fabricate printed TFTs on temperature sensitive polymers or even paper.

Scope of Research Activities
Substrate

Planarization: Development and application of planarization layers and silane coatings to fine tune roughness, surface energy and wettability properties
Functionalization / Structuring: Deposition polymer coatings on substrates and pre-patterning of these coatings with nanostructures and grooves using nanoimprint lithography

Printing

Ink formulation: Selection and formulation of inks for gravure and inkjet printing
Contact printing: multi-layer gravure printing with high overprint accuracy (< 10 µm)
Non-contact printing: high-resolution inkjet printing technology

Curing

UV / IR curing: UV-LED and IR-assisted pinning and drying during or after printing, DUV annealing of printed amorphous oxide semiconductors (AOS) and oxide dielectric precursors
Flash sintering: Flash sintering and activation of semiconductor, dielectric and conductors with broadband Xe lamp pulses
Simulations: Transient thermal profile simulations for flash sintering and drop wetting and spreading simulations

Key Technical Problems to Solve

High precision printing of thin layers of electronic materials on substrates like paper and polymer foils with excessive roughness and dimensional instability
Sintering of inks with functional inorganic oxides on temperature-sensitive organic substrates

Demonstrators

Metal-oxide thin film transitors (TFTs) printed on temperature-sensitive polymer substrate
Haptic display with an array of taxels driven by printed metal-oxide TFTs

Linked Scientific Publications

2021

Abdolhosseinzadeh, S., J. Heier and C. Zhang (2021). "Coating Porous MXene Films with Tunable Porosity for High-Performance Solid-State Supercapacitors." ChemElectroChem 8(10): 1911-1917.
Abdolhosseinzadeh, S., X. Jiang, H. Zhang, J. Qiu and C. Zhang (2021). "Perspectives on solution processing of two-dimensional MXenes." Materials Today 48: 214-240.
Abdolhosseinzadeh, S., C. Zhang, R. Schneider, M. Shakoorioskooie, F. Nüesch and J. Heier (2021). "A Universal Approach for Room-Temperature Printing and Coating of 2D Materials." Advanced Materials: 2103660.

Gilshtein, E., S. Pfeiffer, M. D. Rossell, J. Sastre, L. Gorjan, R. Erni, A. N. Tiwari, T. Graule and Y. E. Romanyuk (2021). "Millisecond photonic sintering of iron oxide doped alumina ceramic coatings." Scientific Reports 11(1): 3536.
Gilshtein, E., J. Tacneng, S. Bolat, G. Torres Sevilla and Y. E. Romanyuk (2021). "Invisible and Flexible Printed Sensors Based on ITO Nanoparticle Ink for Security Applications." Frontiers in Nanotechnology 3.
Xie, S., J. Werder and H. Schift (2021). "Back Injection Molding of Sub-Micron Scale Structures on Roll-to-Roll Extrusion Coated Films." Polymers 13(9): 1410.

2020

Abdolhosseinzadeh, S., J. Heier and C. Zhang (2020). "Printing and coating MXenes for electrochemical energy storage devices." Journal of Physics: Energy 2(3): 031004.
Abdolhosseinzadeh, S., R. Schneider, A. Verma, J. Heier, F. Nüesch and C. Zhang (2020). "Turning Trash into Treasure: Additive Free MXene Sediment Inks for Screen-Printed Micro-Supercapacitors." Advanced Materials 32(17): 2000716.
Bolat, S., G. Torres Sevilla, A. Mancinelli, E. Gilshtein, J. Sastre, A. Cabas Vidani, D. Bachmann, I. Shorubalko, D. Briand, A. N. Tiwari and Y. E. Romanyuk (2020). "Synaptic transistors with aluminum oxide dielectrics enabling full audio frequency range signal processing." Scientific Reports 10(1): 16664.
Gilshtein, E., S. Bolat, G. T. Sevilla, A. Cabas-Vidani, F. Clemens, T. Graule, A. N. Tiwari and Y. E. Romanyuk (2020). "Inkjet-Printed Conductive ITO Patterns for Transparent Security Systems." Advanced Materials Technologies 5(9): 2000369.
Mancinelli, A., S. Bolat, J. Kim, Y. E. Romanyuk and D. Briand (2020). "Deep-UV-Enhanced Approach for Low-Temperature Solution Processing of IZO Transistors with High-k AlOx/YAlOx Dielectric." ACS Applied Electronic Materials 2(10): 3141-3151.
Xie, S., B. Horváth, J. Werder and H. Schift (2020). "Sub-micron silver wires on non-planar polymer substrates fabricated by thermal nanoimprint and back injection molding." Micro and Nano Engineering 8: 100062.

2019

Bolat, S., P. Fuchs, S. Knobelspies, O. Temel, G. T. Sevilla, E. Gilshtein, C. Andres, I. Shorubalko, Y. Liu, G. Tröster, A. N. Tiwari and Y. E. Romanyuk (2019). "Inkjet-Printed and Deep-UV-Annealed YAlOx Dielectrics for High-Performance IGZO Thin-Film Transistors on Flexible Substrates." Advanced Electronic Materials 5(6): 1800843.
Horváth, B., E. Al Jassin-Al-Hashemi and H. Schift (2019). "Interdigitated electrode arrays made by capillary filling and spin coating for UV-sensor fabrication." Flexible and Printed Electronics 4(3): 035002.
Horváth, B., B. Křivová, S. Bolat and H. Schift (2019). "Fabrication of Large Area Sub-200 nm Conducting Electrode Arrays by Self-Confinement of Spincoated Metal Nanoparticle Inks." Advanced Materials Technologies 4(3): 1800652.
Horváth, B., B. Krivová, S. Bolat and H. Schift (2019). "Microfluidics Meets Printed Electronics." CHIMIA International Journal for Chemistry 73(7-8): 636-636.
Horváth, B., B. Křivová and H. Schift (2019). "Nanoimprint meets microfluidics: Development of metal wires from nanoparticle ink filled capillaries." Micro and Nano Engineering 3: 22-30.

Leading Principal Investigator

Dr. Yaroslav Romanyuk
Laboratory for Thin Films and Photovoltaics, Empa

Project Consortium

Dr. Danick Briand, Microsystems for Space Technologies Laboratory, EPF Lausanne
Dr. Jakob Heier, Laboratory for Functional Polymers, Empa
Dr. Helmut Schift, Polymer Nanotechnology Group, PSI