Inflight fiber printing toward array and 3D optoelectronic and sensing architectures

Wenyu Wang; Karim Ouaras; Alexandra L Rutz; Xia Li; Magda Gerigk; Tobias E Naegele; George G Malliaras; Yan Yan Shery Huang

doi:10.1126/sciadv.aba0931

Inflight fiber printing toward array and 3D optoelectronic and sensing architectures

Sci Adv. 2020 Sep 30;6(40):eaba0931. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aba0931. Print 2020 Sep.

Authors

Wenyu Wang^{1

2}, Karim Ouaras^{1

2}, Alexandra L Rutz¹, Xia Li^{1

2}, Magda Gerigk^{1

2}, Tobias E Naegele¹, George G Malliaras¹, Yan Yan Shery Huang^{3

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 1PZ, UK.
² The Nanoscience Centre, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0FF, UK.
³ Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 1PZ, UK. yysh2@cam.ac.uk.

Abstract

Scalability and device integration have been prevailing issues limiting our ability in harnessing the potential of small-diameter conducting fibers. We report inflight fiber printing (iFP), a one-step process that integrates conducting fiber production and fiber-to-circuit connection. Inorganic (silver) or organic {PEDOT:PSS [poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrene sulfonate]} fibers with 1- to 3-μm diameters are fabricated, with the fiber arrays exhibiting more than 95% transmittance (350 to 750 nm). The high surface area-to-volume ratio, permissiveness, and transparency of the fiber arrays were exploited to construct sensing and optoelectronic architectures. We show the PEDOT:PSS fibers as a cell-interfaced impedimetric sensor, a three-dimensional (3D) moisture flow sensor, and noncontact, wearable/portable respiratory sensors. The capability to design suspended fibers, networks of homo cross-junctions and hetero cross-junctions, and coupling iFP fibers with 3D-printed parts paves the way to additive manufacturing of fiber-based 3D devices with multilatitude functions and superior spatiotemporal resolution, beyond conventional film-based device architectures.

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