High-Toughness Aluminum-N-Doped Polysilicon Wiring for Flexible Electronics

One of the essential requirements of any flexible substrate electronic system is the availability of reliable, high density, fine pitch interconnects between components. In this work, we demonstrate a high-toughness two-layer (aluminum, N-doped polysilicon) composite wiring scheme. The top aluminum layer carries most of the current while the polysilicon underlayer electrically bridges any cracks present on the top aluminum induced by flexing thus maintaining electrical conductivity even at very high stresses. When composite and Al control wires on a flexible tape were subject to 4000 cycles of bending, we observed that Al control wires fracture at a 2.5 mm radius of curvature but the composite wires maintain electrical conduction with an increased resistance.