Printing techniques for plastic electronics

This article summarizes two recently developed patterning techniques for plastic electronics: microcontact printing and thermal transfer printing. It reviews the methods and their capabilities, and presents new results on their use in forming transistors and circuits with a range of organic semiconductors. Active matrix backplane circuits for large, mechanical flexible sheets of electronic paper and other display devices represent one class of realistic application whose patterning requirements can be satisfied with current versions of these printing approaches.