Large Area Printing of Organic Transistors via a High Throughput Dry Process

Organic electronic systems offer the advantage of low weight, mechanical flexibility and large area coverage at potentially lower cost. Although the fabrication of functional plastic transistors using approaches such as inkjet printing, lithography and stamping has benn described in the literature [1-3], designing a set of chemically-compatible materials that may ultimately allow for the sequential deposition of individual layers remains a major technical barrier. These material issues also jeopardize the vision of ultimately printing organic electronic devices as we print newspapers today, at high speeds and in a reel-to-reel process. We introduce a novel process -- thermal transfer -- a non-lithographic technique that enables printing multiple, successive layers via a dry additive process. This method is capable of patterning a range of organic materials at high speeds over large areas with micron size resolution and excellent electrical performance. Such a dry, potentially reel-to-reel printing method may provide a practical route to realizing the expected benefits of plastics for electronics. We illustrate the viability of thermal transfer and the ability to develop suitable organics conductors by fabricating a 4000 cm sup 3 flexible plastic backplane that consists of >5000 organic transistors.