Aerosol-Jet Printed Thin Film Transistors

Thin film transistors are at the heart of integrated circuits. Modern computer processor chips can contain more than 2 billion transistors. Such chips are currently fabricated by expensive lithography processes and fabrication facilities can cost more than one billion US dollars. In a future era of cheap, disposable electronics such cost structures will not be practical. Printed electronics however offers a potential solution that can reduce costs and produce truly disposable electronics. Many printing technologies and materials are being developed to meet this need and most efforts focus on printing passive electronic components such as conductors, resistors, capacitors, and antenna. However, to create integrated circuits, active devices are needed. So far, printed active components, such as transistors, diodes, and sensors, have been lagging, mainly due to poor material performance but also deficiencies in the printing technologies. In this paper, the Optomec Aerosol-Jet printing system is introduced as a solution to integrated circuit printing.