Peel-And-stick: Mechanism study for efficient fabrication of flexible/ transparent thin-film electronics

Peel-And-stick process, or water-Assisted transfer printing (WTP), represents an emerging process for transferring fully fabricated thin-film electronic devices with high yield and fidelity from a SiO2/Si wafer to various non-Si based substrates, including papers, plastics and polymers. This study illustrates that the fundamental working principle of the peel-And-stick process is based on the water-Assisted subcritical debonding, for which water reduces the critical adhesion energy of metal-SiO2 interface by 70 , 80%, leading to clean and high quality transfer of thin-film electronic devices. Water-Assisted subcritical debonding is applicable for a range of metal-SiO2 interfaces, enabling the peel-And-stick process as a general and tunable method for fabricating flexible/transparent thin-film electronic devices.