Large Area Nanostructured Electronics Enabled Via Adhesion Lithography

Abstract

The fifth and sixth generations of mobile communications and the internet of things (IoT) demand high-performance electronic devices made at low cost over a large area. Unlike the conventional Si-based electronics, the emerging large-area electronics (LAE) require flexible, stretchable, and lightweight devices that are printable and able to mass manufacture without compromising the performance of state-of-the-art electronic devices. Hence, there is a quest to find alternative fabrication routes and conventional photolithography. In this research work, we explored the adhesion lithography (a-Lith) to further simplify the process steps by adapting bi-layer metals to induce intrinsic stress in the bi-layer and hence facilitate the self-peeling of metal layers which results in more uniform and smaller nanogap between two metals than the previously established a-Lith fabricated nanogaps. The nanogap metal electrodes are further used to fabricate radio frequency (RF) Schottky diodes made using a printable metal oxide semiconductor and flashlight annealing over wafer-scale and demonstrate the operation frequencies above 100 GHz/47 GHz (intrinsic/extrinsic). Notably, for the first time, photonic annealing on such an ultra-small (< 20 nm) nanoscale channel was demonstrated, and the rapid manufacturing of RF diodes from the solution route was achieved. On the other hand, for the first time, organic diodes made using a-Lith fabricated nanogap metal electrodes, and high mobility polymer semiconductors with molecular dopants showed an extrinsic cut-off frequency well above 14 GHz. Finally, the nanogap metal electrodes were explored as a mold and shadow mask to fabricate nano-feature soft stamp and nano-fluidic channels (NFC), respectively. The soft stamp can replicate the high aspect ratio nanoscale features on any arbitrary substrates using available soft lithography routes, and the NFC is further envisioned for bio-molecules detection and sensing applications.