Flexible inorganic oxide thin-film electronics enabled by advanced strategies

Abstract With the advent of human-friendly intelligent life, as well as increasing demands for natural and seamless human-machine interactions, flexibility and wearability are among the inevitable development trends for electronic devices in the future. Due to the advantages of rich physicochemical properties, flexible and stretchable inorganic oxide thin-film electronics play an increasingly important role in the emerging and exciting flexible electronic field, and they will act as a critical player in next-generation electronics. However, a stable strategy to render flexibility while maintaining excellent performance of oxide thin films is the most demanding and challenging problem, both for academic and industrial communities. Thus, this review focuses on the latest advanced strategies to achieve flexible inorganic oxide thin-film electronics. This review emphasizes the physical transferring strategies that are based on mechanical peeling and the chemical transferring strategies that are based on sacrificial layer etching. Finally, this review evaluates and summarizes the merits and demerits of these strategies toward actual applications, concluding with a future perspective into the challenges and opportunities for the next-generation of flexible inorganic oxide thin-film electronics.