Developing High-Resolution Thin-Film Microcircuits on Textiles

Scaling down the form-factor of printed electronics is one of the methods for improving the reliability of printed e-textiles. This also enhances the wearability of the printed e-textile. However, the surface roughness of textiles and the low resolution of current printing methods, such as screen-pr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Engineering proceedings Vol. 30; no. 1; p. 14
Main Authors:	Abiodun Komolafe, Michael Gakas, Steve Beeby
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	MDPI AG 01-01-2023
Subjects:	e-textiles microfabrication techniques micropatterns polyurethane interface layer reliability surface roughness
Online Access:	Get full text
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Summary:	Scaling down the form-factor of printed electronics is one of the methods for improving the reliability of printed e-textiles. This also enhances the wearability of the printed e-textile. However, the surface roughness of textiles and the low resolution of current printing methods, such as screen-printing, often present significant challenges for directly realizing microcircuits on textiles that are developed for printed e-textile applications. This work reports the planarization of a polyester cotton textile with a screen-printed polyurethane (PU) smoothing interface layer to enable the micro-patterning of the textile with conductive thin films using microfabrication techniques. Thermally evaporated copper structures with features sized from 800 µm down to 10 µm are patterned on the planar textile, demonstrating a printed resolution that is otherwise difficult to achieve through screen-printing even with the aid of specialized screens.
ISSN:	2673-4591
DOI:	10.3390/engproc2023030014