Aerosol-jet-printed, 1 volt H-bridge drive circuit on plastic with integrated electrochromic pixel.
In this report, we demonstrate a printed, flexible, and low-voltage circuit that successfully drives a polymer electrochromic (EC) pixel as large as 4 mm(2) that is printed on the same substrate. All of the key components of the drive circuitry, namely, resistors, capacitors, and transistors, were aerosol-jet-printed onto a plastic foil; metallic electrodes and interconnects were the only components prepatterned on the plastic by conventional photolithography. The large milliampere drive currents necessary to switch a 4 mm(2) EC pixel were controlled by printed electrolyte-gated transistors (EGTs) that incorporate printable ion gels for the gate insulator layers and poly(3-hexylthiophene) for the semiconductor channels. Upon application of a 1 V input pulse, the circuit switches the printed EC pixel ON (red) and OFF (blue) two times in approximately 4 s. The performance of the circuit and the behavior of the individual resistors, capacitors, EGTs, and the EC pixel are analyzed as functions of the printing parameters and operating conditions.
Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Minnesota , 421 Washington Avenue SE, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, United States.
Mingjing
M
Ha
Wei
W
Zhang
Daniele
D
Braga
Michael J
MJ
Renn
Chris H
CH
Kim
C Daniel
CD
Frisbie