Three-dimensional electronic surfaces

There is an increasing interest in electronics functionality on surfaces which are not planar. This paper examines the critical technologies for fabricating electronic surfaces which have a three-dimensional shape. Two different approaches for achieving such a goal are examined. One can fabricate electronics using conventional technologies on a flat surface, and then after fabrication deform that surface into the desired shape (e.g. a spherical cap). In an alternative approach, one can directly fabricate onto substrates with an arbitrary shape. In this case one must address the issue of pattern formation and transfer on the curved surfaces. The scaling of letterpress printing to micron-scale features on flat and spherically curved surfaces is demonstrated.