Emerging Tech

Chris Jablonski
Home / News & Blogs / Emerging Tech

First paper-based transistors

By Roland Piquepaille | July 22, 2008, 9:43am PDT

Summary

Portuguese researchers have created the first paper-based transistors. To be more precise, they’ve made the first field effect transistors (FET) with a paper interstrate layer. According to the research team, these new transistors offer the same level of performance as ’state-of-the-art oxide based thin film transistors (TFTs) produced on glass or crystalline silicon substrates.’ Possible applications for these paper-based transistors include new disposable electronics devices, such as paper displays, smart labels, bio-applications or RFID tags. But read more…

Topics

Team, Transistor, TFT, Semiconductors, Hardware, Roland Piquepaille

Blogger Info

Chris Jablonski

Biography

Chris Jablonski

Chris Jablonski
Christopher Jablonski is a freelance technology writer. Previously, he was the manager of marketing editorial at CBS Interactive, delivering client solutions on BNET, ZDNet, and TechRepublic. Prior to joining CBS (CNET Networks), Christopher worked as a research analyst at IDG Communications, Inc. and before that was an analyst for a silicon valley start-up, that' still around today. He was once a contributor to ZDNet's Between the Lines blog.

Christopher received a bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign. With over 10 years in the tech field, he's a budding futurist with a curiosity for transformational technologies, studying the busy intersection of the Internet, business, and society. In his spare time he runs an apparel business and is a disk jockey.

Vendor HotSpot
Here to help you with your Document Management Needs

Read the DocuMentor blog now

Learn More »

Portuguese researchers have created the first paper-based transistors. To be more precise, they’ve made the first field effect transistors (FET) with a paper interstrate layer. According to the research team, these new transistors offer the same level of performance as ’state-of-the-art oxide based thin film transistors (TFTs) produced on glass or crystalline silicon substrates.’ Possible applications for these paper-based transistors include new disposable electronics devices, such as paper displays, smart labels, bio-applications or RFID tags. But read more…

First paper interstrate thin film transistors

You can see above the first paper interstrate thin film transistors developed by the Portuguese team. (Credit: CENIMAT) Here is a link to a larger version of this picture.

For those of you who want to know what’s behind the acronyms mentioned in this post, here are two links to Wikipedia pages: TFT stands for thin film transistor and FET is short for field-effect transistor.

These transistors have been created at the Center of Materials Research (“CEntro de INvestigação em MATeriais” or CENIMAT at the Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa (UNL), Portugal. The research team was led by Elvira Maria Fortunato, Associate Professor, and Rodrigo Martins, Professor at UNL.

The research team said that there is currently “an increased interest in the use of biopolymers for low-cost electronic applications. Since cellulose is the Earth’s major biopolymer, some international teams have reported using paper as the physical support (substrate) of electronic devices. But, until now, no one had ever used paper as an interstrate component of a FET.”

So how did the researchers used paper to build their new transistors? “The research team fabricated the devices on both sides of the paper sheet. This way, the paper acts simultaneously as the electric insulator and as the substrate. [...] Furthermore, electric characterization of devices showed that the hybrid FETs’ performance outpace those of amorphous silicon TFTs, and rival with the actual state of the art of oxide thin film transistors.”

This research work is not currently available online, at least for you and me. It should be published in the September 2008 issue of IEEE Electron Device Letters under the title “High Performance Flexible Hybrid Field Effect Transistors based on Cellulose Fiber-Paper.”

So we’ll have to wait two months to discover more details about these findings.

Sources: AlphaGalileo, July 21, 2008; and various websites

You’ll find related stories by following the links below.

Kick off your day with ZDNet's daily e-mail newsletter. It's the freshest tech news and opinion, served hot. Get it.

Disclosure

Roland Piquepaille

http://blogs.zdnet.com/emergingtech/?page_id=566

Biography

Roland Piquepaille

Roland Piquepaille passed away in early January 2009. He lived in Paris, France, and spent most of his career in software, mainly for high performance computing and visualization companies, working for example for Cray Research and Silicon Graphics. He left the corporate world in 2001 after 33 years immersed into it. In 2002, he started a blog about technology trends and how they will affect our lives.

More from “Emerging Tech”

Related Discussions on TechRepublic

Did you know you can take part in these discussions with your ZDNet membership?
Ask a Question Start a Discussion

Talkback Most Recent of 15 Talkback(s)

  • Cool!
    This gives a new meaning to "Printed circuit". I can see this used in biological monitoring and eventual control of prosthetic devices.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    phatkat
    07/22/2008 04:30 PM
  • RE: First paper-based transistors
    Creating wood-based paper is pretty harmful to the environment. Hemp-based paper is safer for the environment and does not yellow. Also, contrary to popular belief, industrial hemp does not have enough THC content to be used for drug/medicine-related purposes. The US Constitution was written on hemp paper.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    polyethylenedioxythiophene
    07/22/2008 05:24 PM
  • The Constitution is parchment
    Sorry, polyethylenedioxythiophene but that is a myth. Even though hemp was the industrial fiber for paper of the time, the Constitution (and Declaration of Independence) was written on parchment. And parchment was made from treated animal skin (usually sheep).

    Please do not continue to perpetrate the myth. Thank you

    http://www.archives.gov/preservation/formats/paper-vellum.html
    ZDNet Gravatar
    kiafaldorius
    07/23/2008 08:36 AM
  • Duly noted
    Thanks for the update.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    polyethylenedioxythiophene
    07/23/2008 10:22 AM
  • However...
    Jefferson did draft the Declaration of Independence on hemp paper. http://naihc.org/hemp_information/hemp_facts.html
    ZDNet Gravatar
    polyethylenedioxythiophene
    07/23/2008 10:31 AM
  • Other points
    There is more than one copy of both of these documents. The currently surviving display versions are, indeed, on parchment. The documents being written on hemp paper does not necessarily imply that the government's display versions are written on such, as that was not specifically indicated.

    And, yeah, quit spreading those terrible, awful, horrible rumors, you evil, evil person. God will smite you.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    seanferd
    07/23/2008 08:16 PM
  • RE: First paper-based transistors
    Neat. My father was telling me a few years ago that he thought that some day they would be able to print basic circuits from something akin to a bubble jet printer. (ie: relatively cheap).

    Looks like we are one step closer to seeing printable circuits. That would be pretty neat for science/engineering students of various levels.... print out a "mock up" from your desktop circuit printer and test it.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    quarky42
    07/23/2008 08:22 AM
  • Tissue Engineering
    Inkjet printers are being used for cell tissue engineering in a similar manner:

    http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/ten.2005.11.1658?cookieSet=1&journalCode=ten

    Don't know if it has progressed much more than the testing phase, but there will be a day that replacement organs can be generated in the lab using inkjet printing technology.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Your Mom 2.0
    07/23/2008 01:15 PM
  • RE: First paper-based transistors
    Must everything have a disposable version, poor landfills are already overloaded. Maybe they could develop a way to recycle these transistors directly into gasoline, just toss your disposable computer into your gas tank and drive away.

    NAB happy
    ZDNet Gravatar
    nabisho
    07/23/2008 01:18 PM
  • They already are disposable
    and very little recycling is happening. Throwing out a paper-based electronic gadget would actually be less harmful to the environment, take up less space in landfills, and actually decay, unlike silicon and friends.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    seanferd
    07/23/2008 08:19 PM
  • How is that going to help exactly?
    At the moment a lot of electronics are recycled as they cannot be thrown away, but a lot still does go to landfill anyway.

    Printing disposable electronics means that it will all be thrown away, we're just using landfills to do our dirty work and save money. I think its disgusting personally.
    It looks to me like seeding landfills with valuable minerals that can be recovered quickly by mining in a matter of years after the biological components have broken down, instead of burying it for hundreds of years because we cant recover it cheaply or any quicker ourselves...

    On a lighter note though, I cant wait for cheaper solar cells - they are made by the same process that this new technology replaces, doped layers of silicon dioxide.

    There is nothing to stop printed circuits being made on paper now anyway, the only reason it is not used is phenol-based circuit board (made from extracts from pine trees) is denser and stronger than simple fibrous cellulose, and takes the heat of soldering better.

    Conductive inks have been around for years to remove the need for solder and are now used regularly in the packaging industry for security, but I remember an article on ZDNet from a matter of months ago promising smart inks in packaging to make paper displays built into a label or a box front possible. It vanished of course because you'd need a cheap, disposable display driver circuit or a recoverable one to manipulate that smart ink, but this looks like a viable means to do it.

    Expect to see your coke cup singing 'I'm heaving it' as you toss it onto the pile of dancing burger boxes any day soon. I'm not impressed.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    HexHammer67
    (Edited: 07/24/2008 10:35 PM)
  • Oh my word. Christmas...
    nt
    ZDNet Gravatar
    HexHammer67
    07/24/2008 10:53 PM
  • New meaning to printed circuit board
    When will we be able to print out a circuit on a printer and get it to work straight away?
    ZDNet Gravatar
    cpwong
    07/23/2008 08:10 PM
  • This will go great with the paper batteries.
    ?
    ZDNet Gravatar
    seanferd
    07/23/2008 08:20 PM
  • RE: First paper-based transistors
    Good. Now the spellchecker can be built into the paper writing tablet. But seriously, we've been using flexible circuit boards made of thin flexibale dielectric materials for a long time so this is a great innovation.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    opcom
    (Edited: 07/30/2008 12:42 PM)

Talkback - Tell Us What You Think

advertisement
Click Here

The best of ZDNet, delivered

ZDNet Newsletters

Get the best of ZDNet delivered straight to your inbox

Facebook Activity

Blog Roll

Blog Archive

White Papers, Webcasts, & Resources
advertisement