Metal–Organic Framework for Transparent Electronics

Abstract

Electronics allowing for visible light to pass through are attractive, where a key challenge is to make the core functional units transparent. Here, it is shown that transparent electronics can be constructed by epitaxial growth of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) on single-layer graphene (SLG) to give a desirable transparency of 95.7% to 550 nm visible light and an electrical conductivity of 4.0 × 10⁴ S m^-1. Through lattice and symmetry match, collective alignment of MOF pores and dense packing of MOFs vertically on SLG are achieved, as directly visualized by electron microscopy. These MOF-on-SLG constructs are capable of room-temperature recognition of gas molecules at the ppb level with a linear range from 10 to 10⁸ ppb, providing real-time gas monitoring function in transparent electronics. The corresponding devices can be fabricated on flexible substrates with large size, 3 × 5 cm, and afford continuous folding for more than 200 times without losing conductivity or transparency.