Printable electronics: flexibility for the future

Abstract

Printed electronics is an emerging technology with huge potential. Market studies predict a multi‐billion dollar market size within less than 5 years. Due to its compatibility with flexible substrates and low‐cost fabrication, printed electronics is able to bring electronic functionality to markets unfit for rigid and expensive silicon electronics. Key to its success are innovative printing technologies and high‐quality material systems, engineered for specific device applications. Printed electronics is a complex multidisciplinary research area, with still a number of fundamental problems to be solved before the technology can grow to its full potential. Evonik Industries is involved in the development of printed electronics through its unique science‐to‐business concept. (© 2009 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

Paper Electronics

“…In order to achieve a good ink transfer, a high print pressure (1)(2)(3)(4)(5) is used and the ink should have a rather low viscosity of 10-100 mPa s. The high print pressure limits the use of this technique to applications where there are no previously printed soft layers on the substrate that might be destroyed.…”

“…While paper is mainly used for packaging and for displaying and storing information, paper has also recently been considered as a potential substrate for low-cost fl exible electronics. [1][2][3][4][5][6] The idea to "print" electronics on fl exible paper and plastic substrates is not new. Already in the late 1960s Brody and Page at Westinghouse were using a stenciling method for depositing inorganic thin-fi lm transistors (TFTs) on paper substrates on a roll inside a vacuum chamber.…”

Bendable TN-LCD Using Transparent Polyimide Substrate

“…A considerable decrease of sheet resistance and light transmittance was investigated with increasing IZO thickness. The sheet resistance of IZO series with dimension of 10×10 cm 2 , which showed good uniformity in electrical properties as shown in Fig. 1, was indeed reduced from 42 ohm/sq to 23 ohm/sq with increasing IZO thickness.…”

Effects of Solvent Type on Low-Temperature Sintering of Silver Oxide Paste to Form Electrically Conductive Silver Film

“…Recently, for flexible devices, organic films such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polyethylene naphthalate (PEN), and polyimide (PI) films have been used as substrates for printed devices. [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] Therefore, there has been strong demand for paste with a sintering temperature below the glass-transition temperatures of such organic substrates. 16,17 For this lowtemperature sintering, the use of nanoparticles has been the focus of paste study, owing to their advantages of large surface area (A) and surface energy (c).…”

“…In recent years, traditional printing methods, mainly inkjet and screen printing as well as gravure, offset, and flexographic printing, have been applied to the development of touch panels, solar cells, 1-3 flexible displays, 4,5 thin-film transistors, [6][7][8][9][10][11] and smart labels. 12 Among these printing methods, gravure, offset, and flexographic printing are commonly employed as roll-to-roll methods and thus have the advantage of mass production.…”