Solvent-free fabrication of a biodegradable all-carbon paper based field effect transistor for human motion detection through strain sensing

There has been a huge demand for low-cost, eco-friendly, flexible and wearable electronics which find applications in personal health monitoring. Flexible electronics based on plastic substrates have been extensively studied in this regard because of their versatility. However, their fabrication involves energy consuming complex procedures and processing of eco-unfriendly materials which limit their use to certain specific applications. Here we report the fabrication of a flexible all-carbon field effect transistor (FET) using a low-cost, recyclable and biodegradable cellulose paper as both the substrate and the dielectric and pencil graphite as the source, drain, channel and gate without using any expensive, toxic or non-biodegradable materials. The FET transfer characteristics show ambipolar behavior which can be utilized in analog electronics applications like rectifiers, mixers and frequency multipliers and its mobility was found to be very high compared to reduced graphene oxide based FETs. The FET was utilized as a strain sensor which shows excellent sensitivity for very low strains (of both tensile and compressive type) which is comparable to and even better than recently reported carbon nanotube and graphene based strain sensors. The sensitivity of the FET based strain sensor can be modulated by varying the gate voltage under strain. Furthermore, we investigated the performance of the sensor by integrating it with hand gloves to detect human motion. The results indicate that the sensor can be utilized in patient surveillance in healthcare and human–machine interface (HMI) applications. The successful fabrication of this paper based all-carbon transistor using only paper and pencil graphite and its application in human motion detection using strain sensing indicate that this approach can be used for developing highly scalable, low cost, low energy, flexible electronics for healthcare without using any sophisticated fabrication methods or toxic chemicals.

[1]  G. Zhao,et al.  BODIPY derivatives as n-type organic semiconductors: Isomer effect on carrier mobility , 2012 .

[2]  Congli He,et al.  Ultra-sensitive strain sensors based on piezoresistive nanographene films , 2012 .

[3]  Lianmao Peng,et al.  Direct extraction of carrier mobility in graphene field-effect transistor using current-voltage and capacitance-voltage measurements , 2012 .

[4]  L. C. Campos,et al.  Asymmetric effect of oxygen adsorption on electron and hole mobilities in bilayer graphene: long- and short-range scattering mechanisms. , 2013, ACS nano.

[5]  Prabhash Mishra,et al.  Silver Nanoparticles in Comparison with Ionic Liquid and rGO as Gate Dopant for Paper–Pencil-Based Flexible Field-Effect Transistors , 2014, Journal of Electronic Materials.

[6]  Qiyuan He,et al.  Transparent, flexible, all-reduced graphene oxide thin film transistors. , 2011, ACS nano.

[7]  Wangzhou Shi,et al.  Pencil-trace on printed silver interdigitated electrodes for paper-based NO2 gas sensors , 2015 .

[8]  N. Nguyen,et al.  Graphite on paper as material for sensitive thermoresistive sensors , 2015 .

[9]  Narendra Kurra,et al.  Field effect transistors and RC filters from pencil-trace on paper. , 2013, Physical chemistry chemical physics : PCCP.

[10]  Magnus Willander,et al.  Screen printed ZnO ultraviolet photoconductive sensor on pencil drawn circuitry over paper , 2012 .

[11]  K. Hata,et al.  A stretchable carbon nanotube strain sensor for human-motion detection. , 2011, Nature nanotechnology.

[12]  K. Mirica,et al.  Fully-drawn carbon-based chemical sensors on organic and inorganic surfaces. , 2014, Lab on a chip.

[13]  Yongsheng Chen,et al.  Towards flexible all-carbon electronics: Flexible organic field-effect transistors and inverter circuits using solution-processed all-graphene source/drain/gate electrodes , 2010 .

[14]  Electric field effect in graphite crystallites , 2012 .

[15]  P. Barquinha,et al.  High-Performance Flexible Hybrid Field-Effect Transistors Based on Cellulose Fiber Paper , 2008, IEEE Electron Device Letters.

[16]  G. Eda,et al.  Large-area ultrathin films of reduced graphene oxide as a transparent and flexible electronic material. , 2008, Nature nanotechnology.

[17]  K. Shin,et al.  Active Digital Microfluidic Paper Chips with Inkjet‐Printed Patterned Electrodes , 2014, Advanced materials.

[18]  Nae-Eung Lee,et al.  A Flexible Reduced Graphene Oxide Field‐Effect Transistor for Ultrasensitive Strain Sensing , 2014 .

[19]  Haonan Si,et al.  Flexible and Highly Sensitive Strain Sensors Fabricated by Pencil Drawn for Wearable Monitor , 2015 .

[20]  W. Haensch,et al.  Large-scale graphene transistors with enhanced performance and reliability based on interface engineering by phenylsilane self-assembled monolayers. , 2011, Nano letters.

[21]  Xing Xie,et al.  Paper supercapacitors by a solvent-free drawing method† , 2011 .

[22]  G. Zhao,et al.  Modification of n-type organic semiconductor performance of perylene diimides by substitution in different positions: two-dimensional π-stacking and hydrogen bonding. , 2012, ChemSusChem.

[23]  Ruo-Zhou Li,et al.  Direct writing on paper of foldable capacitive touch pads with silver nanowire inks. , 2014, ACS applied materials & interfaces.

[24]  Eric S. Snow,et al.  Random networks of carbon nanotubes as an electronic material , 2003 .

[25]  Mario Costa Sousa,et al.  Observational Models of Graphite Pencil Materials , 2000, Comput. Graph. Forum.

[26]  E. Fortunato,et al.  Nanocrystalline cellulose applied simultaneously as the gate dielectric and the substrate in flexible field effect transistors , 2014, Nanotechnology.

[27]  J. Jang,et al.  Micropatterning of Graphene Sheets by Inkjet Printing and Its Wideband Dipole‐Antenna Application , 2011, Advanced materials.

[28]  Charles M. Lieber,et al.  Synthesis of monolithic graphene-graphite integrated electronics. , 2012, Nature materials.

[29]  Markus Mohr,et al.  Flexible piezoelectric nanogenerators based on a fiber/ZnO nanowires/paper hybrid structure for energy harvesting , 2014, Nano Research.

[30]  Cheng-Wei Lin,et al.  Pencil Drawn Strain Gauges and Chemiresistors on Paper , 2014, Scientific Reports.

[31]  Benjamin C. K. Tee,et al.  25th Anniversary Article: The Evolution of Electronic Skin (E‐Skin): A Brief History, Design Considerations, and Recent Progress , 2013, Advanced materials.

[32]  Hao‐Li Zhang,et al.  Investigating the mechanism of hysteresis effect in graphene electrical field device fabricated on SiO₂ substrates using Raman spectroscopy. , 2012, Small.

[33]  S. Hur,et al.  Low-voltage solution-processed graphene transistors based on chemically and solvothermally reduced graphene oxide , 2011 .

[34]  Charles S Henry,et al.  Microfluidic paper-based analytical device for particulate metals. , 2012, Analytical chemistry.

[35]  Byung Gwan Hyun,et al.  In-situ synthesis of carbon nanotube-graphite electronic devices and their integrations onto surfaces of live plants and insects. , 2014, Nano letters.

[36]  Ting-Kuo Kang.  Tunable piezoresistive sensors based on pencil-on-paper , 2014 .

[37]  V. Brus,et al.  2D nanocomposite photoconductive sensors fully dry drawn on regular paper , 2015, Nanotechnology.

[38]  Takao Someya,et al.  Ultrathin, highly flexible and stretchable PLEDs , 2013, Nature Photonics.

[39]  N. Lee,et al.  Stretchable, Transparent, Ultrasensitive, and Patchable Strain Sensor for Human-Machine Interfaces Comprising a Nanohybrid of Carbon Nanotubes and Conductive Elastomers. , 2015, ACS nano.

[40]  Woo Jin Hyun,et al.  Highly stretchable and wearable graphene strain sensors with controllable sensitivity for human motion monitoring. , 2015, ACS applied materials & interfaces.

[41]  Fei Wang,et al.  All-carbon based graphene field effect transistor with graphitic electrodes fabricated by e-beam direct writing on PMMA , 2015, Scientific Reports.