Paper Electronics Based on Nanocellulose

Abstract

Flexible electronics has received increasing interest, because it offers new possibilities for next-generation devices with thin, lightweight and wearable electronics. Various flexible devices, including flexible smartphones, wearable displays, and healthcare sensors, have been recently developed. These devices have been fabricated on flexible and lightweight plastic films or stretchable elastomers, instead of rigid and heavyweight glass substrates.  Paper serves many purposes in daily life, such as writing, printing, and packaging applications. Paper materials are sustainable, mass producible, inexpensive, biocompatible, recyclable, lightweight, and flexible, and therefore the use of paper has recently been extended to flexible electronic applications. Here we show flexible paper electronics based on nanocellulose paper, i. e. transparent conductive paper, nonvolatile paper memory, paper antenna, prepared by using paper-specific features such as a papermaking process and a porous structure. These paper electronic devices provided both excellent flexibility and high device performances, opening new doors for future flexible and wearable electronics.