How can the performance of flexible electronics be improved through the unlikeliest changes? This is what a recent study presented at the IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) 2025 hopes to address as a team of researchers investigated how a long known “flaw” in flexible electronics might be the key in enhancing their performance. This study has the potential to help engineers better understand new and exciting ways to improve flexible electronics, which are rapidly gaining attention for their durability, industrial, and commercial applications.
For the study, the researchers investigated how a longtime believed flaw of organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs), specifically the contact energy barriers, could actually be used to improve performance. Until now, contact energy barriers have been hypothesized to reduce performance of flexible electronics. Using the contact barriers as a starting point rather than a roadblock, the researchers successfully improved the amount of current flowing through the OTFTs, enabling more enhanced flexible electronics.
“For years, engineers have tried to remove contact energy barriers, and with good reason: more often than not, they hold back performance,” said Dr. Radu Sporea, who is an Associate Professor in Power Electronics and Semiconductor Devices at the University of Surrey and a co-author on the study. “Our research turns that idea on its head. We found that small, well-controlled barriers actually make the transistor’s operation far more stable.”
Flexible electronics use bendable materials instead of rigid silicon, allowing devices to flex, fold, or conform to surfaces. Their characteristics include lightweight, low-cost, low-power technologies whose applications include wearables, medical sensors, electronic skin, foldable displays, smart textiles, flexible solar cells, and next-generation Internet of Things (IoT) systems that integrate seamlessly into everyday life.
How will refined organic thin-film transistors help improve flexible electronics in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!
Sources: University of Surrey, EurekAlert!
Featured Image Credit: University of Surrey