Exciting advancements have been made in the field of flexible electronic devices in the last two decades and will certainly lead to a revolution in peoples’ lives in the future. However, because of the poor sustainability of the active materials in complex stress environments, new requirements have been adopted for the construction of flexible devices. Thus, hierarchical architectures in natural materials, which have developed various environment-adapted structures and materials through natural selection, can serve as guides to solve the limitations of materials and engineering techniques. This review covers the smart designs of structural materials inspired by natural materials and their utility in the construction of flexible devices. First, we summarize structural materials that accommodate mechanical deformations, which is the fundamental requirement for flexible devices to work properly in complex environments. Second, we discuss the functionalities of flexible devices induced by nature-inspired stru...

/pdf/nature-inspired-structural-materials-for-flexible-electronic-3pusz1g5tt.pdf

Nature-Inspired Structural Materials for Flexible Electronic Devices

Recent advances in flexible and stretchable electronics (FSE), a technology diverging from the conventional rigid silicon technology, have stimulated fundamental scientific and technological research efforts. FSE aims at enabling disruptive applications such as flexible displays, wearable sensors, printed RFID tags on packaging, electronics on skin/organs, and Internet-of-things as well as possibly reducing the cost of electronic device fabrication. Thus, the key materials components of electronics, the semiconductor, the dielectric, and the conductor as well as the passive (substrate, planarization, passivation, and encapsulation layers) must exhibit electrical performance and mechanical properties compatible with FSE components and products. In this review, we summarize and analyze recent advances in materials concepts as well as in thin-film fabrication techniques for high-k (or high-capacitance) gate dielectrics when integrated with FSE-compatible semiconductors such as organics, metal oxides, quantum...

High- k Gate Dielectrics for Emerging Flexible and Stretchable Electronics

This work was supported by National Basic Research Program of China
(Project No. 2013CB933301) and National Natural Science Foundation of
China (Project No. 51272038). L.V.B. was supported by China Postdoctoral
Science Foundation. A.O.G. was supported by the Volkswagen
Foundation (Germany) and via the Chang Jiang (Yangtze River)
Chair Professorship (China). G.P.W. acknowledges support from the
Center for Nanoscale Materials, a U.S. Department of Energy Office of
Science User Facility, and support by the U.S. Department of Energy,
Office of Science, under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357. In addition,
the authors acknowledge financial support obtained from the Virtual
Institute for Theoretical Photonics and Energy. This review is part of the
Advanced Optical Materials Hall of Fame article series, which recognizes
the excellent contributions of leading researchers to the field of optical
materials science.

/pdf/broadband-metamaterial-absorbers-1ivwczjh1w.pdf

Broadband Metamaterial Absorbers

More than energy harvesting – Combining triboelectric nanogenerator and flexible electronics technology for enabling novel micro-/nano-systems

Flexible electronics has significantly advanced over the last few years, as devices and circuits from nanoscale structures to printed thin films have started to appear. Simultaneously, the demand for high-performance electronics has also increased because flexible and compact integrated circuits are needed to obtain fully flexible electronic systems. It is challenging to obtain flexible and compact integrated circuits as the silicon based CMOS electronics, which is currently the industry standard for high-performance, is planar and the brittle nature of silicon makes bendability difficult. For this reason, the ultra-thin chips from silicon is gaining interest. This review provides an in-depth analysis of various approaches for obtaining ultra-thin chips from rigid silicon wafer. The comprehensive study presented here includes analysis of ultra-thin chips properties such as the electrical, thermal, optical and mechanical properties, stress modelling, and packaging techniques. The underpinning advances in areas such as sensing, computing, data storage, and energy have been discussed along with several emerging applications (e.g., wearable systems, m-Health, smart cities and Internet of Things etc.) they will enable. This paper is targeted to the readers working in the field of integrated circuits on thin and bendable silicon; but it can be of broad interest to everyone working in the field of flexible electronics.

/pdf/ultra-thin-chips-for-high-performance-flexible-electronics-2vmyrzfqsj.pdf

Ultra-thin chips for high-performance flexible electronics

Design, fabrication, and preliminary characterization of a novel MEMS bionic vector hydrophone

This paper demonstrates a fabrication technology of Ag wrinkled electrodes with application in highly stretchable wireless sensors. Ag wrinkled thin films that were formed by vacuum deposition on top of pre-strained and relaxed polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) substrates which have been treated using an O2 plasma and a surface chemical functionalization process can reach a strain limit up to 200%, while surface adhesion area can reach 95%. The electrical characteristics of components such as resistors, inductors and capacitors made from such Ag conductors have remained stable under stretching exhibiting low temperature and humidity coefficients. This technology was then demonstrated for wireless wearable electronics using compatible processing with established micro/nano fabrication technology.

/pdf/highly-stretchable-electrodes-on-wrinkled-bx0g48rra1.pdf

Highly Stretchable Electrodes on Wrinkled Polydimethylsiloxane Substrates.

Flexible pressure sensors are essential components of electronic skins for future attractive applications ranging from human healthcare monitoring to biomedical diagnostics, robotic skins, and prosthetic limbs. Here we report a new kind of flexible pressure sensor. The sensors are capacitive, and composed of two Ag wrinkled electrodes separated by a carbon nanotubes (CNTs)/polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) composite deformable dielectric layer. Ag wrinkled electrodes were formed by vacuum deposition on top of pre-strained and relaxed PDMS substrates which were treated using an O2 plasma, a surface functionalization process, and a magnetron sputtering process. Ultimately, the developed sensor exhibits a maximum sensitivity of 19.80% kPa−1 to capacitance, great durability over 500 cycles, and rapid mechanical responses (<200 ms). We also demonstrate that our sensor can be used to effectively detect the location and distribution of finger pressure.

https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/16/12/2131/pdf

Flexible Pressure Sensor with Ag Wrinkled Electrodes Based on PDMS Substrate.

Magnetically levitated-triboelectric nanogenerator as a self-powered vibration monitoring sensor

This letter reports a novel vector hydrophone based on the piezoresistive effect of resonant tunneling diode (RTD). An external pressure introduces stress in the layers of RTD and induces its current-voltage (I-V) curves change. This effect has been applied to designing new sensor. By control-hole technology, the sensor is processed integrated with GaAs/InxGa1-xAs/AlAs double barrier structures posited on its strain-sensitive region. The fabricated sensor is packaged for watertight solution, and underwater measurements are conducted in RTD's negative differential resistance (NDR) region. Directivity curve of the sensor follows ";8"; cosine functional form, which shows its vector sound signal detection ability, and its sensitivity reaches -184.6 dB (0 dB = 1 V/muPa) at 1 KHz.

Binzhen Zhang

Papers

Design, fabrication, and preliminary characterization of a novel MEMS bionic vector hydrophone

Highly Stretchable Electrodes on Wrinkled Polydimethylsiloxane Substrates.

Flexible Pressure Sensor with Ag Wrinkled Electrodes Based on PDMS Substrate.

Magnetically levitated-triboelectric nanogenerator as a self-powered vibration monitoring sensor

A Novel Vector Hydrophone Based on the Piezoresistive Effect of Resonant Tunneling Diode