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A form of carbon called graphene could be a useful material in the production of stretchy, transparent electronic components.
To demonstrate its potential, Jong-Hyun Ahn at Sungkyunkwan University in Suwon and Jeong Ho Cho of Soongsil University in Seoul, both in South Korea, and their colleagues report transistors based on graphene, but printed on a stretchy rubber substrate. The team first laid down and patterned a graphene film on copper foil, then transferred it to rubber to form two electrodes — the 'source' and 'drain' — and the semiconducting channel region. Extra components can then be added using an aerosol jet to print polymers on top, forming the insulating layer and the third 'gate' electrode.
The method avoids the high-temperature, vacuum processes usually required for transistor manufacture and creates a transistor that works even when its rubber base is stretched.
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Stretchy graphene transistors. Nature 480, 9 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/480009f
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/480009f
