The effect of coating in increasing the critical size of islands on a compliant substrate

by Juil Yoon, Zhen Zhang, Nanshu Lu, Zhigang Suo

As well pointed out by Journal Club of March 2007, the flexible electronics is an emerging technology.

One possible solution for flexible electronics is to fabricate functional islands of stiff materials on a compliant polymer substrate. One major drawback of such a design is the limited size of the islands, which means the limited number of transistors on each island, since large islands cannot survive under a certain loading. How to increase the critical size of island is the issue. We show that a thin layer of polymer coating, covering the islands and the substrate, can markedly increase the critical island size.

Any comments and advices are welcomed.

Published on Applied Physics Letters 90, 211912 (2007)

DOI link:  10.1063/1.2742911