Flexible Electronics from Foils to Textiles

Plastic electronics are soft, deformable, and lightweight, and are suitable for the realization of foldable displays, lightweight solar cells, and wearable/implantable devices. The development of flexible electronic circuits is essential in all such applications. This chapter provides a general overview of materials and technologies for flexible thin-film transistors. The focus is on devices and circuits that are fabricated directly on polyimide foils and based on amorphous indium gallium zinc oxide (a-IGZO) and high-k dielectrics. The last part of the chapter shows an original approach to integrating electronics into textiles, which can be used in medical applications or environment monitoring.