Abstract

Being a fundamental technology that drives large area electronics such as flat panel displays, thin-film transistor (TFT) technology has experienced a rapid growth over the last decade due to a vast adoption of consumer electronics such as smart phones and TVs. In the display either AMLCDs or AMOLEDs, a TFT acts as a switch or forms a pixel driving circuit. It is an electronically-active device without sensing/transducing functionality or intelligence. Architecture wise, it often consists of three terminals of gate, source and drain like a MOSFET.

Recently, the potential of TFTs in non-display applications has been take a serious revisit mainly due to emerging new markets such as IOTs, wearable electronics and human-machine interface. These non-display applications can become new driven force for large area electronics in the coming era. In order to enable such applications, the TFT requires a design change and . We hereby propose a dual-gate field-coupled TFT architecture where its top gate is field-sensitive and its bottom gate is for control. The optical, mechanical, and thermal fields can be coupled and the output of the dual-gate TFT depends on strength of the external stimuli. In this talk, I will address some emerging applications including optical sensing and imaging, tactile sensing and electronic skin, wearable health monitoring, energy harvesting and etc. Conventional material systems forming the TFTs including amorphous silicon, low temperature polysilicon, and oxide semiconductors will be discussed.