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Elastic integrated electronics based on a stretchable n-type elastomer–semiconductor–elastomer stack

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Abstract

Elastic integrated electronics are of potential use in a range of emerging applications, particularly those that require devices that can form an interface with soft biological tissue. The development of such devices has typically focused on the creation of stretchy p-type semiconductors, and the lack of suitable stretchy n-type semiconductors limits the potential of stretchable integrated systems. Here we show that a brittle n-type organic semiconductor can be made mechanically stretchable by integrating into a stack with an elastomer–semiconductor–elastomer architecture. The structure suppresses the formation and propagation of microcracks and can be stretched by up to 50% with negligible loss of performance. It also improves the long-term stability of the semiconductor in an ambient environment. We use the n-type elastomer–semiconductor–elastomer stack, together with other stretchy electronic materials, to build elastic transistors, digital logic gates, complementary electronics, p–n photodetectors and an active matrix multiplexed deformable imager.

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Fig. 1: Stretchable n-type ESE stack.
Fig. 2: Stretchable n-type organic transistor array.
Fig. 3: Stretchable logic gates based on n-type organic transistor.
Fig. 4: Stretchable complementary inverter and bilayer photodetector.
Fig. 5: Curvature-adjustable imager.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

C.Y. is grateful for financial support by the Office of Naval Research grant N00014-18-1-2338 under the Young Investigator Program and the National Science Foundation grants CAREER (1554499), EFRI (1935291) and CPS (1931893). T.J.M. and A.F. acknowledge support from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research grant (FA9550-22-1-0423) and Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) at Northwestern University (NSF DMR-1720139).

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Hyunseok Shim, Kyoseung Sim, Binghao Wang, Yongcao Zhang.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA

    Hyunseok Shim, Shubham Patel, Seonmin Jang & Cunjiang Yu

  2. Materials Science and Engineering Program, University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA

    Hyunseok Shim, Yongcao Zhang, Seonmin Jang & Cunjiang Yu

  3. Department of Electronics Engineering, Pusan National University, Busan, Republic of Korea

    Hyunseok Shim

  4. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA

    Kyoseung Sim, Shubham Patel & Cunjiang Yu

  5. Department of Chemistry, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Ulsan, Republic of Korea

    Kyoseung Sim

  6. Center for Wave Energy Materials, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Ulsan, Republic of Korea

    Kyoseung Sim

  7. Joint International Research Laboratory of Information Display and Visualization, School of Electronic Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China

    Binghao Wang

  8. Department of Chemistry and the Materials Research Center, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

    Tobin J. Marks & Antonio Facchetti

  9. Flexterra Inc., Skokie, IL, USA

    Antonio Facchetti

  10. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA

    Cunjiang Yu

  11. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Materials Research Institute, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA

    Cunjiang Yu

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  1. Hyunseok Shim
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Contributions

K.S. and C.Y. conceived and designed the experiment. K.S., H.S., Y.Z., S.P. and S.J. performed the experiments. K.S., H.S. and Y.Z. characterized device performance. K.S., H.S. and Y.Z. analysed the experimental data. B.W., T.J.M. and A.F. provided materials and advised on the experiment. H.S., K.S. and C.Y. wrote the paper.

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Correspondence to Cunjiang Yu.

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Nature Electronics thanks Jung-Hun Seo and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary Notes 1 and 2 and Figs. 1–28.

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Shim, H., Sim, K., Wang, B. et al. Elastic integrated electronics based on a stretchable n-type elastomer–semiconductor–elastomer stack. Nat Electron 6, 349–359 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-023-00966-4

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