Aerosol-jet-printed, high-speed, flexible thin-film transistor made using single-walled carbon nanotube solution

A high-purity, surfactant-free and stable SWCNT aqueous solution was prepared using a series of chemical and physical processes. The SWCNT solution has a very limited amount of carbonaceous impurities, if any, and a total metal content of well below 500 ppb. It is stable for months without the addition of surfactant. Such SWCNT aqueous solution enables ink-jet printing of the entire fast, flexible SWCNT-based field-effect thin-film transistor (FE-TFT) at room temperature without the engagement of any traditional dry or wet chemical processes used for fabricating silicon-based transistors. High-speed SWCNT-based flexible FE-TFTs were printed using Aerosol Jet® printing technology. The printed flexible FE-TFTs were characterized to have a current ON–OFF ratio of greater than 130 with an operation frequency of greater than 5 GHz.