Paper-based Electronics: Passive Components and Low Pass Filters Using Solvent-free Eco-friendly Fabrication

We report an eco-friendly and easy-going way of fabricating a vast range of passive electronic components and low pass filters. This is achieved by directly writing graphite on paper and cutting and pasting aluminum foil and copper tape on different substrates. Resistance was achieved from 4 kΩ to MΩ(s) by penciling several sustainable layers of different graphite to clay content pencils. Capacitors of capacitance from 2 pF to 10 μF are fabricated using graphite, aluminum foil, and copper tape as conductive materials on printing A4, baking, and butter paper as substrate and dielectric materials as for parallel plate capacitors. Pencil on paper-based interdigitated capacitors is reported to achieve lower capacitance and higher cut-off frequency values of low pass filters. Resistors and capacitors of different values are fabricated in a plane to design low pass filters with 100 Hz - 2 MHz cut-off frequency range. All the components and circuits are fabricated from foldable, eco-friendly, and readily available paper materials as substrates. These paper-based components are helpful for foldable electronics, foldable printed circuit boards, and soft robotics.