Graphene-based inkjet printing allows for faster flexible electronics

November 28, 2011

SEM micrograph of graphene-ink-printed pattern (credit: F. Torrisi et al.)

University of Cambridge engineers have created inkjet printer inks based on graphene, allowing for high-performance flexible, transparent electronics devices.

Printing on flexible substrates allows electronics devices to be placed on curved surfaces, but current materials used in printer inks have low mobility (how quickly an electron or hole can move), so their performance is limited.

Graphene is superior in terms of mobility, purity, defects, and optoelectronics properties, but large scale production approaches are needed for widespread use, the engineers say.

So they developed a new technique to create flakes less than a micron (millionth of a meter) across to prevent clogging print heads, using by liquid phase exfoliation of graphite in N-Methylpyrrolidone. They then added the graphene material to a printing ink, and printed transparent, conductive patterns on glass, creating high-mobility, graphene-based thin-film transistors.

This paves the way to all-printed, flexible, and transparent graphene devices on arbitrary substrates, the engineers concluded.

Ref.: F. Torrisi et al., Ink-Jet Printed Graphene Electronics, arXiv, arxiv.org/abs/1111.4970