A High‐Capacitance Salt‐Free Dielectric for Self‐Healable, Printable, and Flexible Organic Field Effect Transistors and Chemical Sensor

Abstract

Printable and flexible electronics attract sustained attention for their low cost, easy scale up, and potential application in wearable and implantable sensors. However, they are susceptible to scratching, rupture, or other damage from bending or stretching due to their “soft” nature compared to their rigid counterparts (Si-based electronics), leading to loss of functionality. Self-healing capability is highly desirable for these “soft” electronic devices. Here, a versatile self-healing polymer blend dielectric is developed with no added salts and it is integrated into organic field transistors (OFETs) as a gate insulator material. This polymer blend exhibits an unusually high thin film capacitance (1400 nF cm −2 at 120 nm thickness and 20–100 Hz). Furthermore, it shows pronounced electrical and mechanical self-healing behavior, can serve as the gate dielectric for organic semiconductors, and can even induce healing of the conductivity of a layer coated above it together with the process of healing itself. Based on these attractive properties, we developed a self-healable, low-voltage operable, printed, and flexible OFET for the first time, showing promise for vapor sensing as well as conventional OFET applications.

A mechanically and electrically self-healing graphite composite dough for stencil-printable stretchable conductors

“…primary, secondary and tertiary amines). 21 As shown in Fig. 1a, bPEI exhibits a well-defined predominantly viscous behavior (the loss modulus (G") dominating the storage modulus (G'), G" > G') in the range of frequencies analyzed.…”

Mimicking Human and Biological Skins for Multifunctional Skin Electronics

“…Furthermore, OFETs integrated with self‐healable PDMS dielectric layers display high electrical stability, are hysteresis free, and have stable transfer characteristics. Notably, the metal–ligand coordination bonds in the dielectric layers have the additional advantage of an increased dielectric constant due to their high polarizability, whereas other self‐healable dielectric layers in OFETs suffer from high‐cost printing fabrication and capacitance drops depending on the increase in applied electric‐field frequency . Similarly, a new concept of metal–ligand coordination has been reported using dual‐strength dynamic interactions .…”

Synthesis of Multiwalled Carbon Nanotube-Reinforced Polyborosiloxane Nanocomposites with Mechanically Adaptive and Self-Healing Capabilities for Flexible Conductors

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6] Materials decorated with self-healing feature could boost the lifetime of products and build new potentials in various areas. 7 Selfhealing conductors are currently attracting a significant number of studies, [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] particularly for advanced electronic applications, including chemical sensors, 17 thermal sensors, 18 supercapacitors, [19][20][21] lithium-ion batteries, 2 and electronic skin. 7,22 Similarly, flexible conductors play an important role in the emerging fields, such as prosthetics, soft robotics, stretchable displays and human machine interfaces.…”