Cost-Effective Methods to Nanopattern Thermally Stable Platforms on Kapton HN Flexible Films Using Inkjet Printing Technology to Produce Printable Nitrate Sensors, Mercury Aptasensors, Protein Sensors, and Organic Thin Film Transistors

TL;DR

This study develops cost-effective, thermally stable nanopatterned platforms on Kapton HN films using inkjet printing, enabling the creation of various sensors and transistors with high durability and performance.

Contribution

It introduces a novel inkjet printing method on Kapton HN films for fabricating durable, thermally stable sensors and transistors with demonstrated high sensitivity and stability.

Findings

Nitrate sensor with 2 ppm detection limit

Mercury sensor with linear RCT-concentration correlation

Stable OTFT with consistent mobility and threshold voltage

Abstract

Kapton HN films, adopted worldwide due to their superior thermal durability (up to 400 {\deg}C), allow the high temperature sintering of nanoparticle based metal inks. By carefully selecting inks and Kapton substrates, outstanding thermal stability and anti-delaminating features are obtained in both aqueous and organic solutions and were applied to four novel devices: a solid state ion selective nitrate sensor, an ssDNA based mercury aptasensor, a low cost protein sensor, and a long lasting organic thin film transistor (OTFT). Many experimental studies on parameter combinations were conducted during the development of the above devices. The results showed that the ion selective nitrate sensor displayed a linear sensitivity range with a limit of detection of 2 ppm. The mercury sensor exhibited a linear correlation between the RCT values and the increasing concentrations of mercury. The protein printed circuit board (PCB) sensor provided a much simpler method of protein detection. Finally, the OTFT demonstrated a stable performance with mobility values for the linear and saturation regimes, and the threshold voltage. These devices have shown their value and reveal possibilities that could be pursued.