Novel patterning techniques and materials concepts for large area electronics
Dimitra G. Georgiadou and Thomas D. Anthopoulos
Physics Department and Centre for Plastic Electronics, Imperial College London, London,
United Kingdom
E-mail
Adhesion lithography (a-Lith) is a novel patterning technique for the fabrication of nanogap-
separated (<30 nm) electrodes. The main attractiveness of this technique, as compared to
other nanogap electrode manufacturing methods, such as electron beam lithography, scanning
probe lithography techniques or electrochemical approaches, lies primarily in the fact that it
is a simple, high yield, low cost, scalable fabrication process and also it is extremely versatile
in terms of electrode materials and architectures selection or substrates to which it can be
applied. More specifically, the two electrodes can be of the same or different metal or other
conducting material, their aspect ratio can be very high (>100,000) and they can be deposited
on large area rigid or flexible substrates.
Deposition of a semiconducting material with high mobility and appropriate energy levels in
the nanogap channels can give rise to co-planar Schottky diodes with large rectification ratio
and fast dynamic response at high operating frequencies, rendering these nanostructures ideal
platforms for highly efficient rectifiers and ambipolar devices.
Herein it will be shown for the first time that a-Lith can be successfully applied to transparent
electrodes, like Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) substrates, and increase the functionality of the
nanogap diodes, especially in the case of certain optoelectronic applications, where optical
transparency is a prerequisite. Furthermore, we will demonstrate different
proof-of-concept
applications including p- and n-type radio frequency rectifying Schottky diodes that can drive
high currents in a very small active area due to the extreme downscaling of key device
dimensions.
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