Liquid-Assisted Extreme Transfer Printing Technology for Assembling Functional Structures

Transfer printing is a technique of assembling layered functional structures down to the nanoscale by first picking up a thin film processed on a substrate prior and then releasing it onto a target substrate, and has been widely used in the fabrication of film based electronic devices. However, the traditional transfer printing approaches rely heavily on trial and error methods with low yield in practice, in particular, for use in the delivery of thin films with multiple layers or discrete structures due to uncertainties in multiple interfaces or complex structural features, which often causes damage and/or residual contaminations on thin films. In this poster, I will present series of our developed novel strategies of transfer printing technique by investigating fundamental interfacial delamination behavior in a liquid environment, referred to as liquid-assisted transfer printing technique, where we use the adjective “extreme” to highlight the underlying fundamental unusual mechanics mechanism. I will first introduce a hydrolysis-based chemomechanics enabled transfer printing technique, and it is underpinned by a synergistic effect of both external mechanical loading and interior hydrolysis at interfaces. Comprehensive chemomechanics theory will be presented by incorporating the kinetic chemical reaction at the interface of liquid molecules and interfacial solid bonds into the interface energy release rate of thin film detachment. Besides, its coupling with mechanical deformation of thin films will be considered by taking into account various peeling conditions. After that, a multiscale-multiphysics computational model that implements this chemomechanics theory into a finite element model with all atomic information informed from a reactive atomistic-continuum model will be introduced to simulate the detachment of thin films at the continuum scale. Guided by the theoretical and computational analysis, I will demonstrate the applications of this chemomechanics-driven assistant transfer printing technique in the delivery of a broad variety of materials in a defect-free manner, including two-dimensional graphene, silicon nanomembrane, and three-dimensional plasmonic nanoarchitectures. Parallel with the effort of developing this novel transfer printing that focuses on delivery of films from a solid substrate, I will introduce another technique of transfer printing of films from the surface of a liquid substrate, referred to as the capillary transfer printing. Compared with the solid native substrates, the fluidity of liquid provides a compliant liquid-solid interface that allows films to move upwards or downside the liquid substrate in a high speed (referred to as pull-up transfer and push-down transfer accordingly) and thus enables a selective transfer contact of the two film surfaces with the receiver substrates. Besides, the small yet capillary forces enable a fast, robust, and reliable transfer of films with a wide range of materials and thickness variations. A theoretical model will be presented to describe the mechanisms of the capillary transfer and to establish the parameter space for successful transfers. More importantly, extensive experiments, together with comprehensive theoretical models and computational simulations, on a broad material diversity of film, liquid, and substrates will be given to demonstrate the robust capabilities of this capillary transfer printing. The present results are expected to lay a foundation for quantitative exploration and control of transfer printing of films for manufacturing electronics, devices, and will also provide new view insights in the exploration of new approaches in manufacturing that are beyond the current ones.

Related publications: [1]. Yue Zhang, Mengtian Yin, Yongmin Baek, Kyusang Lee, Giovanni Zangari, Liheng Cai, Baoxing Xu. Capillary transfer of soft films. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). 117. 10(2020) 5210-5216.

[2]. Dae Seung Wie#, Yue Zhang#, Min Ku Kim, Bongjoong Kim, Sangwook Park, Young-Joon Kim, Pedro P. Irazoquid, Xiaolin Zheng, Baoxing Xu, Chi Hwan Lee. Wafer-recyclable, environment-friendly transfer printing for large-scale thin film nanoelectronics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). 115(2018) 7236-7244. (#Equal contribution)