High-performance flexible thin-film transistors exfoliated from bulk wafer

Mechanically flexible integrated circuits (ICs) have gained increasing attention in recent years with emerging markets in portable electronics. Although a number of thin-film-transistor (TFT) IC solutions have been reported, challenges still remain for the fabrication of inexpensive, high-performance flexible devices. We report a simple and straightforward solution: mechanically exfoliating a thin Si film containing ICs. Transistors and circuits can be prefabricated on bulk silicon wafer with the conventional complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) process flow without additional temperature or process limitations. The short channel MOSFETs exhibit similar electrical performance before and after exfoliation. This exfoliation process also provides a fast and economical approach to producing thinned silicon wafers, which is a key enabler for three-dimensional (3D) silicon integration based on Through Silicon Vias (TSVs).