scholarly journals Ultra-smooth glassy graphene thin films for flexible transparent circuits

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (11) ◽  
pp. e1601574 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiao Dai ◽  
Jiang Wu ◽  
Zhicheng Qian ◽  
Haiyan Wang ◽  
Jie Jian ◽  
...  

Large-area graphene thin films are prized in flexible and transparent devices. We report on a type of glassy graphene that is in an intermediate state between glassy carbon and graphene and that has high crystallinity but curly lattice planes. A polymer-assisted approach is introduced to grow an ultra-smooth (roughness, <0.7 nm) glassy graphene thin film at the inch scale. Owing to the advantages inherited by the glassy graphene thin film from graphene and glassy carbon, the glassy graphene thin film exhibits conductivity, transparency, and flexibility comparable to those of graphene, as well as glassy carbon–like mechanical and chemical stability. Moreover, glassy graphene–based circuits are fabricated using a laser direct writing approach. The circuits are transferred to flexible substrates and are shown to perform reliably. The glassy graphene thin film should stimulate the application of flexible transparent conductive materials in integrated circuits.

Coatings ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 23
Author(s):  
Weiguang Zhang ◽  
Jijun Li ◽  
Yongming Xing ◽  
Xiaomeng Nie ◽  
Fengchao Lang ◽  
...  

SiO2 thin films are widely used in micro-electro-mechanical systems, integrated circuits and optical thin film devices. Tremendous efforts have been devoted to studying the preparation technology and optical properties of SiO2 thin films, but little attention has been paid to their mechanical properties. Herein, the surface morphology of the 500-nm-thick, 1000-nm-thick and 2000-nm-thick SiO2 thin films on the Si substrates was observed by atomic force microscopy. The hardnesses of the three SiO2 thin films with different thicknesses were investigated by nanoindentation technique, and the dependence of the hardness of the SiO2 thin film with its thickness was analyzed. The results showed that the average grain size of SiO2 thin film increased with increasing film thickness. For the three SiO2 thin films with different thicknesses, the same relative penetration depth range of ~0.4–0.5 existed, above which the intrinsic hardness without substrate influence can be determined. The average intrinsic hardness of the SiO2 thin film decreased with the increasing film thickness and average grain size, which showed the similar trend with the Hall-Petch type relationship.


2001 ◽  
Vol 15 (17n19) ◽  
pp. 667-670 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. RODRÍGUEZ-LAZCANO ◽  
M. T. S. NAIR ◽  
P. K. NAIR

The possibility of generating ternary compounds through annealing thin film stacks of binary composition has been demonstrated before. In this work we report a method to produce large area coating of ternary compounds through a reaction in solid state between thin films of Sb2S3 and CuS. Thin films of Sb2S3 -CuS were deposited on glass substrates in the sequence of Sb2S3 followed by CuS (on Sb2S3 ) using chemical bath deposition method. The multilayer stack, thus produced, of approximately 0.5 μm in thickness, where annealed under nitrogen and argon atmospheres at different temperatures to produce films of ternary composition, CuxSbySz . An optical band gap of ~1.5 eV was observed in these films, suggesting that the thin films of ternary composition formed in this way are suitable for use as absorber materials in photovoltaic devices. The results on the analyses of structural, electrical and optical properties of films formed with different combinations of thickness in the multilayers will be discussed in the paper.


Nanomaterials ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (11) ◽  
pp. 910 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rongbo Wu ◽  
Min Wang ◽  
Jian Xu ◽  
Jia Qi ◽  
Wei Chu ◽  
...  

In this paper, we develop a technique for realizing multi-centimeter-long lithium niobate on insulator (LNOI) waveguides with a propagation loss as low as 0.027 dB/cm. Our technique relies on patterning a chromium thin film coated on the top surface of LNOI into a hard mask with a femtosecond laser followed by chemo-mechanical polishing for structuring the LNOI into the waveguides. The surface roughness on the waveguides was determined with an atomic force microscope to be 0.452 nm. The approach is compatible with other surface patterning technologies, such as optical and electron beam lithographies or laser direct writing, enabling high-throughput manufacturing of large-scale LNOI-based photonic integrated circuits.


Author(s):  
Khalid Alzoubi ◽  
Susan Lu ◽  
Bahgat Sammakia ◽  
Mark Poliks

Flexible electronics represent an emerging area in the electronics packaging and systems integration industry with the potential for new product development and commercialization in the near future. Manufacturing electronics on flexible substrates will produce low cost devices that are rugged, light, and flexible. However, electronic systems are vulnerable to failures caused by mechanical and thermal stresses. For electronic systems on flexible substrates repeated stresses below the ultimate tensile strength or even below the yield strength will cause failures in the thin films. It is known that mechanical properties of thin films are different from those of bulk materials; so, it is difficult to extrapolate bulk material properties on thin film materials. The objective of this work is to study the behavior of thin-film metal coated flexible substrates under high cyclic bending fatigue loading. Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polyethylene naphthalate (PEN) are widely used substrates in the fabrication of microelectronic devices. Factors affecting the fatigue life of thin-film coated flexible substrates were studied, including thin film thickness, temperature, and humidity. A series of experiments for sputter-deposited copper on PET substrates were performed. Electrical resistance and crack growth rate were monitored during the experiments at specified time intervals. High magnification images were obtained to observe the crack initiation and propagation in the metal film. Statistical analysis based on design of experiments concepts was performed to identify the main factors and factor’s interaction that affect the life of a thin-film coated substrate. The results of the experiments showed that the crack starts in the middle of the sample and slowly grows toward the edges. Electrical resistance increases slightly during the test until the crack length covers about 90% of the total width of the sample where a dramatic increase in the resistance takes place.


2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzan Biran Ay ◽  
Nihan Kosku Perkgoz

Large-area catalytic thin films offer great potential for green technology applications in order to save energy, combat pollution, and reduce global warming. These films, either embedded with nanoparticles, shaped with nanostructuring techniques, hybridized with other systems, or functionalized with bionanotechnological methods, can include many different surface properties including photocatalytic, antifouling, abrasion resistant and mechanically resistive, self-cleaning, antibacterial, hydrophobic, and oleophobic features. Thus, surface functionalization with such advanced structuring methods is of significance to increase the performance and wide usage of large-area thin film coatings specifically for environmental remediation. In this review, we focus on methods to increase the efficiency of catalytic reactions in thin film and hence improve the performance in relevant applications while eliminating high cost with the purpose of widespread usage. However, we also include the most recent hybrid architectures, which have potential to make a transformational change in surface applications as soon as high quality and large area production techniques are available. Hence, we present and discuss research studies regarding both organic and inorganic methods that are used to structure thin films that have potential for large-area and eco-friendly coatings.


RSC Advances ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (61) ◽  
pp. 35384-35391 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Coroa ◽  
B. M. Morais Faustino ◽  
A. Marques ◽  
C. Bianchi ◽  
T. Koskinen ◽  
...  

Simultaneously transparent and flexible conductive materials are in demand to follow the current trend in flexible technology. A highly transparent and flexible thermoelectric generator of 17 p–n modules was constructed based on copper iodide thin films.


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