Low-Voltage Printed, All-Polymer Integrated Circuits Employing a Low-leakage and High-Yield Polymer Dielectric

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel low-voltage all-polymer integrated circuit technology using a parylene-C based dielectric bilayer, enabling reliable, high-yield, and low-leakage organic transistors and logic circuits suitable for low-cost consumer applications.

Contribution

Development of a parylene-C based dielectric bilayer compatible with top-gate architectures for low-voltage, all-polymer OFETs and logic circuits with high yield and low leakage.

Findings

All-polymer OFETs operate below 2 V with high performance.

Reliable fabrication of bendable, transparent devices.

Demonstration of low-voltage logic circuits like inverters and ring oscillators.

Abstract

In the path toward the integration of organic field effect transistors (OFETs) and logic circuits into low-cost and mass produced consumer products, all-organic devices based on printed semiconductors are one of the best options to meet stringent costs requirements. Within this framework, it is still challenging to achieve low voltage operation, as required by the use of thin film batteries and energy harvesters, for which a high capacitance and reliable organic dielectric is required. Here, the development of a parylene-C based dielectric bilayer compatible with top-gate architectures for low-voltage OFETs and logic circuits is presented. The polymer bilayer dielectric allowed the high yield fabrication of all-polymer, bendable, transparent p- and n-type OFETs operating below 2 V, with low leakage, uniform performances and high yield. Such result is a key enabler for the reliable realization of complementary logic circuits that can operate already at a voltage bias of 2 V, such as well-balanced inverters, ring-oscillators and D-Flip-Flops.