Flexible Hybrid Electronics

摘要

Flexible hybrid electronic devices and/or systems integrate functional materials/components in traditional and unusual electronic architectures on flexible substrates to yield systems that have unique properties, unavailable to conventional, wafer-based devices: lightweight construction, conformable mechanics, functional reconfigurability, self-healing constitution, and others. This area of research, which benefits greatly from cross-fertilization among diverse disciplines such as materials science, chemistry, physics, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, biomedical engineering, and computer science, offers the potential to revolutionize electronic system architectures, advanced manufacturing processes, strategies for integrating semiconductor devices with the human body, and methods for harvesting power and for processing and wirelessly transmitting data. Recent breakthroughs in the area of flexible hybrid electronics not only open up tremendous new avenues for research, but also suggest the potential for broader impacts on human life. Successful outcomes may help to realize a vision in which “everything is connected” as a collection of “Internet of Things”, with implications for next-generation wearables, information technology, energy, healthcare, social security, and so on. Industry analysts from IDTechEx predict compound growth rates in flexible hybrid electronics of 30% per year from 2011 to 2028, thereby forming the foundations for further fundamental research in this area. The development of intrinsically stretchable electronic materials is an area of fundamental importance. Both nanoscale materials and organic materials have received increasing attention in recent years because of their outstanding stretchability and the ease of processing. On this topic, Dae-Hyeong Kim and co-workers (article number 1902743) review the latest studies on intrinsically stretchable electronic nanocomposites that generally consist of conducting/semiconducting filler materials inside or on elastomer backbone matrices. Yong Zhu and co-workers (article number 1902343) summarize the design and integration strategies as well as manufacturing techniques for nanomaterial-enabled flexible and stretchable sensing systems. Cunjiang Yu and co-workers (article number 1902417) review recent developments regarding electronics made of elastomeric materials, including rubbery conductors, rubbery semiconductors, and rubbery dielectrics. Wei Shi, Yunlong Guo, and Yunqi Liu (article number 1901493) summarize strategies to achieve flexible organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) and discuss their potential applications in biomimetic sensory systems and nervous systems. Lian Duan and co-workers (article number 1902391) review progress regarding the development of light-emitting active materials and fabrication technologies for flexible displays, covering technologies based on organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), quantum-dot light-emitting diodes (QLEDs), and perovskite light-emitting diodes (PeLEDs). The emergence of hybrid flexible electronics opens up a series of unprecedented application possibilities with broad interest and potential for impact, especially in biointegrated systems. Biomedical applications, especially those that require a long-term use of the device in the implanted environment, pose additional requirements on device properties (e.g., gas/vapor permeability, biocompatibility, bioresorbability, power consumption, etc.), which must be considered in the design of hybrid flexible electronics. Woon-Hong Yeo and co-workers summarize a comprehensive list of classification rules in mechanical, physicochemical, biocompatible, electrical, and device-level properties that are required in different application scenarios/environments (article number 1901924). Miniaturized wireless devices provide powerful capabilities in neuroscience research, as implantable light sources for simulation/inhibition via optogenetics, as integrated microflu