Integration of ferroelectric materials on flexible substrates for microwave applications

While most of the electronic components are fabricated on widely employed hard substrates such as silicon, the performance of silicon technology is not sufficient to satisfy the requirements of novel technologies like flexible electronics where device flexing plays a vital factor for its functionality. Therefore, novel materials which are compatible with present day technologies are being constantly explored to meet the ever increasing demands for civilian and military applications. One solution involves flexible substrates which have numerous advantages compared to its silicon or GaAs counterparts, including lower cost, light weight, micro-fabrication compatibility and above all the flexing advantage. Flexible electronics have shown a great potential in the field of semiconductor technology in fabrication of devices such as sensors, displays, and transducers and research is being actively conducted in other areas including radio frequency communications, energy harvesting, textiles.

This dissertation is expounded around three phases, namely, Phase 1. Selection of Flexible substrate, thin film materials and fabrication processes. Phase 2. Thin film characterization of the selected materials. Phase 3. Fabrication, characterization and testing of the phase shifting performance of the Micro-flex circuits.