Nanowire active-matrix circuitry for low-voltage macroscale artificial skin

ABSTRACT Large-scale integration of high-performance electronic components on mechanically flexible substrates may enable new applications in electronics, sensing and energy1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8.

Over the past several years, tremendous progress in the printing and transfer of single-crystalline, inorganic micro- and nanostructures on plastic substrates has been achieved through

various process schemes5,6,7,8,9,10. For instance, contact printing of parallel arrays of semiconductor nanowires (NWs) has been explored as a versatile route to enable fabrication of

high-performance, bendable transistors and sensors11,12,13,14. However, truly macroscale integration of ordered NW circuitry has not yet been demonstrated, with the largest-scale active

systems being of the order of 1 cm2 (refs 11,15). This limitation is in part due to assembly- and processing-related obstacles, although larger-scale integration has been demonstrated for

randomly oriented NWs (ref. 16). Driven by this challenge, here we demonstrate macroscale (7×7 cm2) integration of parallel NW arrays as the active-matrix backplane of a flexible

pressure-sensor array (18×19 pixels). The integrated sensor array effectively functions as an artificial electronic skin2,17,18, capable of monitoring applied pressure profiles with high

spatial resolution. The active-matrix circuitry operates at a low operating voltage of less than 5 V and exhibits superb mechanical robustness and reliability, without performance

degradation on bending to small radii of curvature (2.5 mm) for over 2,000 bending cycles. This work presents the largest integration of ordered NW-array active components, and demonstrates

a model platform for future integration of nanomaterials for practical applications. Access through your institution Buy or subscribe This is a preview of subscription content, access via

your institution ACCESS OPTIONS Access through your institution Subscribe to this journal Receive 12 print issues and online access $259.00 per year only $21.58 per issue Learn more Buy this

article * Purchase on SpringerLink * Instant access to full article PDF Buy now Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout ADDITIONAL ACCESS OPTIONS: * Log in

* Learn about institutional subscriptions * Read our FAQs * Contact customer support SIMILAR CONTENT BEING VIEWED BY OTHERS HIGH-SPEED AND LARGE-SCALE INTRINSICALLY STRETCHABLE INTEGRATED

CIRCUITS Article 13 March 2024 MOLDABLE AND TRANSFERRABLE CONDUCTIVE NANOCOMPOSITES FOR EPIDERMAL ELECTRONICS Article Open access 07 June 2022 RECONFIGURABLE ASSEMBLY OF SELF-HEALING

STRETCHABLE TRANSISTORS AND CIRCUITS FOR INTEGRATED SYSTEMS Article 19 May 2025 REFERENCES * Cao, Q. et al. Medium-scale carbon nanotube thin-film integrated circuits on flexible plastic

substrates. _Nature_ 454, 495–500 (2008). Article  CAS  Google Scholar  * Sekitani, T. et al. Organic nonvolatile memory transistors for flexible sensor arrays. _Science_ 326, 1516–1519

(2009). Article  CAS  Google Scholar  * Cohen-Karni, T., Timko, B. P., Weiss, L. E. & Lieber, C. M. Flexible electrical recording from cells using nanowire transistor arrays. _Proc. Natl

Acad. Sci. USA_ 106, 7309–7313 (2009). Article  CAS  Google Scholar  * Fan, Z. et al. Three-dimensional nanopillar-array photovoltaics on low-cost and flexible substrates. _Nature Mater._

8, 648–653 (2009). Article  CAS  Google Scholar  * McAlpine, M. C., Ahmad, H., Wang, D. & Heath, J. R. Highly ordered nanowire arrays on plastic substrates for ultrasensitive flexible

chemical sensors. _Nature Mater._ 6, 379–384 (2007). Article  CAS  Google Scholar  * Park, S-I. et al. Printed assemblies of inorganic light-emitting diodes for deformable and

semitransparent displays. _Science_ 325, 977–981 (2009). Article  CAS  Google Scholar  * Rogers, J. A. & Huang, Y. A curvy, stretchy future for electronics. _Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA_

106, 10875–10876 (2009). Article  CAS  Google Scholar  * Yoon, J. et al. Ultrathin silicon solar microcells for semitransparent, mechanically flexible and microconcentrator module designs.

_Nature Mater._ 7, 907–915 (2008). Article  CAS  Google Scholar  * Javey, A., Nam, S., Friedman, R. S., Yan, H. & Lieber, C. M. Layer-by-layer assembly of nanowires for

three-dimensional, multifunctional electronics. _Nano Lett._ 7, 773–777 (2007). Article  CAS  Google Scholar  * Fan, Z. et al. Wafer-scale assembly of highly ordered semiconductor nanowire

arrays by contact printing. _Nano Lett._ 8, 20–25 (2008). Article  CAS  Google Scholar  * Fan, Z., Ho, J. C., Jacobson, Z. A., Razavi, H. & Javey, A. Large scale, heterogeneous

integration of nanowire arrays for image sensor circuitry. _Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA_ 105, 11066–11070 (2008). Article  CAS  Google Scholar  * Takahashi, T. et al. Monolayer resist for

patterned contact printing of aligned nanowire arrays. _J. Am. Chem. Soc._ 131, 2102–2103 (2009). Article  CAS  Google Scholar  * Yerushalmi, R., Jacobson, Z. A., Ho, J. C., Fan, Z. &

Javey, A. Large scale, highly ordered assembly of nanowire parallel arrays by differential roll printing. _Appl. Phys. Lett._ 91, 203104 (2007). Article  Google Scholar  * Fan, Z. et al.

Towards the development of printable nanowire electronics and sensors. _Adv. Mater._ 21, 3730–3743 (2009). Article  CAS  Google Scholar  * Qing, Q. et al. Nanowire transistor arrays for

mapping neural circuits in acute brain slices. _Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA_ 107, 1882–1887 (2010). Article  CAS  Google Scholar  * Ju, S. et al. Transparent active matrix organic

light-emitting diode displays driven by nanowire transistor circuitry. _Nano Lett._ 8, 997–1004 (2008). Article  CAS  Google Scholar  * Someya, T. et al. A large-area, flexible pressure

sensor matrix with organic field-effect transistors for artificial skin applications. _Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA_ 101, 9966–9970 (2004). Article  CAS  Google Scholar  * Someya, T. et al.

Conformable, flexible, large-area networks of pressure and thermal sensors with organic transistor active matrixes. _Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA_ 102, 12321–12325 (2005). CAS  Google Scholar 

* Xiang, J. et al. Ge/Si nanowire heterostructures as high-performance field-effect transistors. _Nature_ 441, 489–493 (2006). Article  CAS  Google Scholar  * Ford, A. C. et al.

Diameter-dependent electron mobility of InAs nanowires. _Nano Lett._ 9, 360–365 (2009). Article  CAS  Google Scholar  Download references ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work was partially financially

supported by NSF CAREER Award, MARCO/MSD Focus Center and DARPA/DSO Programmable Matter. The synthesis part of this work was supported by a LDRD from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

A.J. acknowledges support from the World Class University programme at Sunchon National University. AUTHOR INFORMATION Author notes * Hyunhyub Ko Present address: Present address: School of

Nano-Biotechnology & Chemical Engineering, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, Ulsan Metropolitan City 689-798, South Korea, AUTHORS AND AFFILIATIONS * Department of

Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94702, USA Kuniharu Takei, Toshitake Takahashi, Johnny C. Ho, Hyunhyub Ko, Paul W.

Leu, Ronald S. Fearing & Ali Javey * Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720, USA Kuniharu Takei, Toshitake Takahashi, 

Johnny C. Ho, Hyunhyub Ko, Paul W. Leu & Ali Javey * Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA Kuniharu Takei, Toshitake

Takahashi, Johnny C. Ho, Hyunhyub Ko, Paul W. Leu & Ali Javey * Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94702, USA Andrew G.

Gillies Authors * Kuniharu Takei View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Toshitake Takahashi View author publications You can also search for

this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Johnny C. Ho View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Hyunhyub Ko View author publications You can also

search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Andrew G. Gillies View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Paul W. Leu View author publications

You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Ronald S. Fearing View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Ali Javey View author

publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar CONTRIBUTIONS K.T., T.T. and A.J. designed the experiments. K.T., T.T., A.G.G., J.C.H. and H.K. carried out

experiments. K.T. and P.W.L. carried out simulations. K.T., T.T., P.W.L. and A.J. contributed to analysing the data. K.T. and A.J. wrote the Letter and all authors provided feedback.

CORRESPONDING AUTHOR Correspondence to Ali Javey. ETHICS DECLARATIONS COMPETING INTERESTS The authors declare no competing financial interests. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION SUPPLEMENTARY

INFORMATION Supplementary Information (PDF 403 kb) RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS Reprints and permissions ABOUT THIS ARTICLE CITE THIS ARTICLE Takei, K., Takahashi, T., Ho, J. _et al._ Nanowire

active-matrix circuitry for low-voltage macroscale artificial skin. _Nature Mater_ 9, 821–826 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat2835 Download citation * Received: 26 March 2010 * Accepted:

16 July 2010 * Published: 12 September 2010 * Issue Date: October 2010 * DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat2835 SHARE THIS ARTICLE Anyone you share the following link with will be able to

read this content: Get shareable link Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article. Copy to clipboard Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing

initiative