Flexible transparent tribotronic transistor for active modulation of conventional electronics

Flexible and transparent electronics have attracted wide attention for electronic skin, wearable sensors and man-machine interactive interfacing. In this paper, a novel flexible transparent tribotronic transistor (FTT) is developed by coupling an organic thin film transistor (OTFT) and a triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) in freestanding sliding mode. The carrier transport between drain and source can be modulated by the sliding-induced electrostatic potential of the TENG instead of the conventional gate voltage. With the sliding distance increases from 0 to 7 mm, the reverse drain current is almost linearly increased from 2 to 22 A. The FTT has excellent performances in stability and durability in different bending modes and radius. The optical transmittance of the device is about 71.6% in the visible wavelength range from 400 to 800 nm. Moreover, the FIT is used for active modulation of conventional electronics, in which the luminance, magnetism, sound and micro-motion can be modulated by sliding a finger. This work has provided a new way to actively modulate conventional electronics, and demonstrated the practicability of tribotronics for human-machine interaction.