Integrated Pressure Sensors Based on Field-Effect Transistors for Next-Generation Electronics

Abstract

As the electronics industry has grown and evolved rapidly from the conventional Si-based technologies to flexible and wearable electronics. Such a huge change goes along with 4th industrial revolution in which relatively new industrial fields such as internet of things (IoT), big data, or virtual reality emerge as promising businesses. One of the important electronic components in those types of next-generation electronics is input devices and pressure sensing devices have their own importance in that pressure or the normal force is the most basic stimulus derived from gravity or human force. In order to meet these demands, there have been efforts to make pressure sensors for typical purposes such as ultra-sensitive touch. However, such pressure sensing devices have limited pressure sensing ranges and it hinders the versatility of the pressure sensors. Herein, the pressure sensing devices based on the thin-film transistors using graphene and oxide semiconductor channel are presented, respectively. Those pressure sensors use the pressure sensitive transistors solely without additional pressure sensing components, so it reduces the fabrication costs, helps densification of pixel array, and transparency can be obtained. This strategy of making pressure sensors and integrating with other electronic components suggests the substantial promises as next-generation electronics.