Recent progress of high performance polymer OLED and OPV materials for organic printed electronics

The development of organic printed electronics has been expanding to a variety of applications and is expected to bring innovations to our future life. Along with this trend, high performance organic materials with cost-efficient fabrication processes and specific features such as thin, light weight, bendable, and low power consumption are required. A variety of organic materials have been investigated in the development of this field. The basic guidelines for material design and the recent progress of polymer-based organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) and organic photovoltaic cells (OPVs) are reported.     

Inkjet printed electronics for multifunctional composite structure

Copper nano-ink with a drop-on-demand (DOD) piezoelectric inkjet printing method was introduced. The printed electrodes were thermally sintered to ensure high-quality electrical and mechanical performances. To check the reliability of the printed electrodes on a polymer layer, resistance changes were measured under static loading. The electrodes with various widths and thicknesses were used to find the optimal dimensions. A multifunctional composite laminate which can harvest and store a solar energy was fabricated using printed electrodes. An amorphous silicon solar cell and a thin film solid state lithium-ion battery were adhesively joined and electrically connected to a thin flexible printed circuit board (PCB). Then, the passive components such as resistor and diode were electrically connected to the printed circuit board by silver pasting. The integrated PCB was co-cured with a carbon/epoxy composite laminate by the vacuum bag molding process in an autoclave. The structural and functional performance of the final energy harvesting/storage composite laminate was tested under mechanical loading.     

Inkjet printed electronics using copper nanoparticle ink

Inkjet printing of electrode using copper nanoparticle ink is presented. Electrode was printed on a flexible glass epoxy composite substrate using drop on demand piezoelectric dispenser and was sintered at 200 °C of low temperature in N₂ gas condition. The printed electrodes were made with various widths and thickness. In order to control the thickness of the printed electrode, number of printing was varied. Resistivity of printed electrode was calculated from the cross-sectional area measured by a profilometer and resistance measured by a digital multimeter. Surface morphology of electrode was analyzed using scanning electron microscope (SEM) and atomic force microscope (AFM). From the study, it was found that 10 times printed electrode has the most stable grain structure and low resistivity of 36.7 nΩ m.     

Synthesis of monodisperse silver nanoparticles for ink-jet printed flexible electronics

In this study, monodisperse silver nanoparticles were synthesized with a new reduction system consisting of adipoyl hydrazide and dextrose at ambient temperature. By this facile and rapid approach, high concentration monodisperse silver nanoparticles were obtained on a large scale at low protectant/AgNO(3) mass ratio which was highly beneficial to low cost and high conductivity. Based on the synthesized monodisperse silver nanoparticles, conductive inks were prepared with water, ethanol and ethylene glycol as solvents, and were expected to be more environmentally friendly. A series of electrocircuits were fabricated by ink-jet printing silver nanoparticle ink on paper substrate with a commercial printer, and they had low resistivity in the range of 9.18 × 10( - 8)-8.76 × 10( - 8) Ω m after thermal treatment at 160?°C for 30 min, which was about five times that of bulk silver (1.586 × 10( - 8) Ω m). Moreover, a radio frequency identification (RFID) antenna was fabricated by ink-jet printing, and 6 m wireless identification was realized after an Alien higgs-3 chip was mounted on the printed antenna by the flip-chip method. These flexible electrocircuits produced by ink-jet printing would have enormous potential for low cost electrodes and sensor devices.     

High copper loading metal organic decomposition paste for printed electronics

A screen-printable metal organic decomposition (MOD) paste with a high copper loading has been developed. Copper precursor (copper hydroxide and copper formate) and copper flasks are used as copper sources in the paste. The copper precursor is reduced to copper nanoparticles during sintering at a temperature of 200 °C for 3 min and forms a conductive film, whereas the copper flakes are added to increase the conductivity of the printed film. The optimal formulation of the screen-printing MOD paste was obtained with a copper hydroxide to formic acid ratio of 0.875 and by adding copper flakes to reach a total copper loading of 30 wt%. The printed film after sintering had a sheet resistance of 39 mΩ/sq and a volume resistivity of 21 μΩ cm.     

Semiconductor materials for present-day solid-state electronics

This review paper outlines advances and challenges in semiconductor materials research and the lines along which the techniques for growing large-diameter crystals and large-area epitaxial heterostructures are progressing. We discuss potential applications of quantum-size heterostructures and thin-film structures based on hydrided amorphous semiconductors. The major problems facing the technology of semiconductor materials and devices are outlined     

Organic electronics on banknotes

Organic transistors and circuits are fabricated directly on the surface of banknotes. The transistors operate with voltages of 3 V and have a field-effect mobility of about 0.2 cm2 V?1s?1. For an array of 100 transistors a yield of 92% is obtained.     

Ordered materials for organic electronics and photonics

We present a critical review of semiconducting/light emitting, liquid crystalline materials and their use in electronic and photonic devices such as transistors, photovoltaics, OLEDs and lasers. We report that annealing from the mesophase improves the order and packing of organic semiconductors to produce state-of-the-art transistors. We discuss theoretical models which predict how charge transport and light emission is affected by the liquid crystalline phase. Organic photovoltaics and OLEDs require optimization of both charge transport and optical properties and we identify the various trade-offs involved for ordered materials. We report the crosslinking of reactive mesogens to give pixellated full-colour OLEDs and distributed bi-layer photovoltaics. We show how the molecular organization inherent to the mesophase can control the polarization of light-emitting devices and the gain in organic, thin-film lasers and can also provide distributed feedback in chiral nematic mirrorless lasers. We update progress on the surface alignment of liquid crystalline semiconductors to obtain monodomain devices without defects or devices with spatially varying properties. Finally the significance of all of these developments is assessed.     

Facile synthesis of low temperature sintering Ag nanopaticles for printed flexible electronics

Silver nanoparticles with small particle size distribution and good dispersibility were synthesized through a facile chemical reduction method. In the progress, AgNO₃ was used as the precursor, polyacrylic acid and ethanol amine were introduced as the protective agent, hydrazine hydrate was chosen as the reduce agent. Diameter of the resulted monodisperse silver nanoparticles is between 50 and 70 nm. Then, the obtained silver nanoparticles were well dispersed in the oil-based ink, which can be printed on a flexible polyimide substrate to form the conductive printed circuit board through following low temperature annealing treatment. A lowest electricity resistivity of 5.6?×?10^?8 Ω m is obtained which is only 3.5× higher than that of bulk silver.