A robust ionic liquid-polymer gate insulator for high-performance flexible thin film transistors

Herein, we propose an ionic liquid-polymer dielectric layer for flexible electronics reinforced by a chemical interaction between the polymer matrix (PVP) and the ionic liquid. Due to the robust structures of the cross-linked PVP matrix and hydrogen bonding between the ionic liquid and PVP, the ionic liquid-PVP (IL-PVP) layer exhibited a good mechanical strength when bending up to 1000 times and a stable thermal behaviour up to 300 degrees C. Furthermore, the IL-PVP dielectric layer showed a high capacitance value of similar to 2 mu F cm(-2) and was operated well as a gate insulator for flexible ZnO thin film transistors with a linear field-effect mobility of similar to 3.3 cm(2) V-1 s(-1) at a gate bias of 3 V.