Short Course - Thin-Film Transistors for Emerging Applications Beyond Silicon

Tuesday 18 February 2025

Cripps Court Conference Centre, Magdalene College, Cambridge, UK

COURSE FOCUS

This course will discuss the fundamentals of oxide and organic thin-film transistors and their operation in the subthreshold regime for low power applications. Oxide and organic semiconductors have a relatively large bandgap, therefore rendering ultra-low electrical off-state current and good optical transparency. The remarkable features of ultra-low off-state currents facilitate deep subthreshold operation, while optical transparency opens up possibilities for multi-modal sensing/modulation in bioelectronics. Subthreshold thin-film transistors have advantages of low power and high gain, which are important for bioelectronic applications, for example real-time electrophysiologic recording. In addition, this course will introduce the novel application of high-channel-count active-matrix neurostimulation, showcasing the expanding role of thin-film transistors beyond traditional applications in display and biosensing.


COURSE OUTLINE

Tuesday 18 February 2025

08:30 – 09:00 Registration

09:00 Course begins

Oxide technologies

  • Basic material properties

  • Design tool for circuits

Organic electronics

  • Printed organic transistors

  • Stretchable organic transistors

  • Transparent organic transistors

Low-power bioelectronic applications

  • Subthreshold operation

  • Low-power high-gain amplifiers

High-channel-count neurostimulation

  • Basics of neurostimulation

  • Active-matrix architecture

12:30 Course ends


COURSE LEADER

Dr Chen Jiang, Associate Professor
Tsinghua University, China

Dr Chen Jiang is currently an associate professor, with the Department of Electronic Engineering, Tsinghua University. He received a BS degree in engineering from the Department of Electronic Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China, and a PhD in Engineering from University of Cambridge, UK. From 2018 to 2021, he was supported by the Wellcome Trust as a Junior Interdisciplinary Fellow at the Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Cambridge, UK. His research focuses on novel electronic device architectures, large-area flexible transparent electronics, low-power circuits, and their applications to bioelectronics. Dr Jiang was a recipient of the IEEE Electron Devices Society PhD Student Fellowship 2018, and Intel China Academic Excellence Scholarship 2022.