Perspectives and Pitfalls of Inkjet-Printed Electronics: A Chemist's Point of View

Printed electronics is experiencing considerable growth due to the ability of inkjet printing methods to integrate functional (bio)materials under ambient conditions. The trend is to manufacture connected devices using "all-print" methods. To meet this demand, printed electronics must make several advances. On the one hand, it is necessary to move from printing mainly metallic inks (temperature and pressure sensors, RFID antennas...) to printing inks with very high added value (e.g. biosensing functions, energy supply....). On the other hand, to achieve competitive analytical performances, the spatial resolution of the printed patterns must be optimized by several orders of magnitude to reach sub-micrometer scales.1
To satisfy this dual need, we are developing original approaches for surface functionalization by and for inkjet printing with electron-aytical targets. One of these approaches consists in formulating reactive inks composed of molecular structures able to covalently bind to the surface of a substrate and thus modulate its local wettability characteristics. Another major approach consists in printing suspensions of functionalized nanoparticles able to induce nanostructures by self-assembly on the substrate surface during the evaporation of the solvents constituting the ink. These two approaches will be illustrated through examples of realization in order to underline their relevance and to establish the scientific and technological barriers associated with the functionalization of surface by high resolution printing methods.