Reconfigurable assembly of self-healing stretchable transistors and circuits for integrated systems

Abstract

Self-healing soft electronic devices that can recover their mechanical and electrical properties are of use in the development of long-term wearable and implantable electronic systems. However, creating self-healing and stretchable integrated circuits is challenging due to the absence of suitable materials and sufficiently customizable assembly technology. Here we report a reconfigurable and scalable assembly method for self-healing, stretchable, active-type devices, including thin-film transistors, active-matrix arrays and logic gates. The self-healing, stretchable, thin-film transistor can easily be fabricated by transfer-printing of intrinsically soft constituent films: an insulating self-healing polymer for the gate dielectric, a semiconducting nanocomposite for the active channel and a carbon-nanotube-embedded composite for the electrodes. Our assembly method allows the thin-film transistors to be extended to wearable and implantable 5 × 5 active-matrix, soft and self-healing transistor arrays. These arrays can multiplex pressure data recorded from a 5 × 5 tactile sensor array, provide feedback control to an array of soft and self-healing optoelectronic pixels, and maintain electrical performance even when implanted in the subcutaneous tissue of a rodent model. To demonstrate user-on-demand functionality, we combined, disassembled and recombined thin-film transistors and load resistors into three different types of logic gates (inverter, NAND and NOR circuits). Wearable and implantable electronics—including an active-matrix array of thin-film transistors—can be created using transfer-printing of self-healing and stretchable films based around self-healing polymer composites with insulating, semiconducting or conducting properties.