Flexible Micromachined Fabric Structures for Electronics
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current flexible electronic devices face limitations in exhibiting good electrical, optical, and mechanical properties in deformed configurations, and existing processing methods are not capable of integrating diverse materials with truly flexible substrates that can conform to a wide range of shapes and orientations, particularly for high-quality inorganic semiconductors and ceramics.
Innovation Solution
The development of flexible structures and devices using micromachined and nanomachined fabrics, woven networks, and mesh networks that can be fabricated and functionalized with various materials, including inorganic and organic semiconductors, dielectrics, and metals, allowing for integration with diverse materials and components, and enabling the creation of free-standing structures capable of stretching and conforming to contoured surfaces.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If conventional single crystalline silicon based electronic devices are used, then high electronic performance is achieved, but the devices become brittle and cannot be configured in bent or flexed orientations
Solution Approach 1:
The device is segmented into multiple functional layers (semiconductor layer, substrate layer, encapsulation layers) that can be independently optimized. The semiconductor functionality is separated from the mechanical substrate, allowing the substrate to provide flexibility while the semiconductor layer maintains electronic performance through thin-film fabrication techniques
Solution Approach 2:
The invention uses composite structures combining different materials with complementary properties - flexible polymer substrates (providing mechanical flexibility) with thin-film semiconductors (providing electronic functionality). This composite approach allows the device to exhibit both flexibility and functional performance that neither material could achieve alone
2Strength
If flexible electronic devices are made with bent orientations and high radius of curvature, then mechanical flexibility is improved, but the device complexity and fabrication difficulty increase
Solution Approach 1:
The flexible substrate and semiconductor layers are fabricated in a planar configuration using standard thin-film processing techniques before any bending or conforming is required. This preliminary fabrication on flat substrates simplifies the manufacturing process, allowing the device to be made with conventional equipment and then subsequently deformed into the desired bent or conformal configuration without adding fabrication complexity
3Reliability
If high quality inorganic semiconductor components are processed using conventional methods, then electronic performance is improved, but the processing temperatures exceed the melting or decomposition temperatures of polymer-based substrates
Solution Approach 1:
The invention changes the processing temperature parameter from conventional high-temperature (>1000°C) semiconductor fabrication to low-temperature thin-film deposition and processing (typically below 200-400°C). This parameter change enables the use of polymer-based flexible substrates that cannot withstand high temperatures, while still achieving functional semiconductor devices through alternative low-temperature fabrication techniques such as chemical vapor deposition, atomic layer deposition, or solution processing
Data Source
AI summary
This invention provides free-standing structures, functionalized free-standing structures and functional devices that are flexible, including nano- and micromachined flexible fabrics comprising woven networks and mesh networks. The present invention provides processing methods for making and functionalizing flexible free-standing structures having a wide range of integrated materials, devices and device components. The methods of the present invention are capable of providing large area functional electronic, optoelectronic, fluidic, and electromechanical devices and device arrays which exhibit good device performance in stretched, bent and/or deformed configurations.