Strain-Isolated Multilayer Electronic Devices
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Solution Overview
Problem
Flexible electronic devices face challenges in achieving high performance due to the inherent brittleness of materials and limitations in manufacturing processes, which restrict their ability to conform to various shapes and withstand mechanical deformations, leading to reliability issues and poor interconnect performance.
Innovation Solution
The development of highly bendable and stretchable electronic devices is achieved by controlling the location of neutral mechanical surfaces and using strain isolation layers to mitigate mechanical strain, combining inorganic nanomaterials like silicon nanoribbons with ultrathin elastomeric substrates in multilayer designs, allowing for geometric transformations and integration on complex curvilinear surfaces.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If conventional silicon-based device fabrication methods are used, then high electronic performance is achieved, but the devices become incompatible with flexible substrates due to high processing temperatures and brittle materials
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the processing temperature parameter from conventional high temperatures (>1000°C) to low temperatures compatible with plastic substrates, enabling silicon-based semiconductor fabrication on flexible substrates without compromising electronic performance
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates composite structures combining rigid semiconductor components with flexible polymer substrates, achieving both high electronic performance and flexibility by integrating incompatible materials through careful structural design
2Reliability
If inorganic semiconductor materials are used, then good electronic performance is achieved, but the materials become brittle and prone to damage under mechanical strain
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the device structure into rigid semiconductor functional layers and flexible polymer substrate layers, allowing each material to operate in its optimal regime while the composite structure achieves both performance and flexibility
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses thin film semiconductor layers deposited on flexible polymer substrates, enabling the rigid semiconductor material to be protected and supported by the flexible polymer while maintaining electronic performance
3Reliability
If traditional high quality inorganic semiconductor components are processed at high temperatures, then excellent electronic properties are achieved, but the plastic substrates melt or decompose
Solution Approach 1:
The patent fundamentally changes the processing temperature parameter from high temperature (>1000°C) to low temperature processes, enabling compatible fabrication of both silicon-based semiconductors and plastic substrates without one material degrading the other
Data Source
AI summary
Disclosed herein are stretchable, foldable and optionally printable, processes for making devices and devices such as semiconductors, electronic circuits and components thereof that are capable of providing good performance when stretched, compressed, flexed or otherwise deformed. Strain isolation layers provide good strain isolation to functional device layers. Multilayer devices are constructed to position a neutral mechanical surface coincident or proximate to a functional layer having a material that is susceptible to strain-induced failure. Neutral mechanical surfaces are positioned by one or more layers having a property that is spatially inhomogeneous, such as by patterning any of the layers of the multilayer device.