Progress Toward Development of All-Printed RFID Tags: Materials, Processes, and Devices

Printed electronics provides a promising potential pathway toward the realization of ultralow-cost RFID tags for item-level tracking of consumer goods. Here, we report on our progress in developing materials, processes, and devices for the realization of ultralow-cost printed RFID tags. Using printed nanoparticle patterns that are subsequently sintered at plastic-compatible temperatures, low-resistance interconnects and passive components have been realized. Simultaneously, printed transistors with mobilities >10^-1 cm²/V-s have been realized using novel pentacene and oligothiophene precursors for pMOS and ZnO nanoparticles for nMOS. AC performance of these devices is adequate for 135-kHz RFID, though significant work remains to be done to achieve 13.56-MHz operation.