High-resolution ink-jet printing of all-polymer transistor circuits

Impressive advances in vapor-phase deposition and photolithographic patterning techniques have been fueling the silicon microelectronics revolution over the last 40 years. However, for many interesting classes of materials, including biological materials or functional synthetic polymers, vacuum deposition and photolithography are not the techniques of choice for producing ordered structures and devices. Many of these materials selfassemble into well-ordered microstructures when deposited from solution, and patterning may be more readily achieved by solution-based selective deposition and direct-printing techniques. It is appealing to consider novel ways of manufacturing functional circuits and devices based on techniques that are similar to printing visual information onto paper. © Materials Research Society 2001.