Printed Electronics Technology

Scientists have developed a photovoltaic organic material that captures light efficiently and that potentially could be coated on building materials.

In this article, Dr Scott Watkins will provide some perspective on the manufacture of graphene oxide with respect to chemical purity and production sustainability.

Quantum dots (QDs) are often billed as the ultimate, or at least as the next generation of, phosphors. The main driver often is the QDs' ability to act as ultra-narrowband downconverters, resulting in extremely wide color gamut displays and efficient and high CRI solid state LED lights.

Scientists have designed an ion gel with excellent toughness and an ability to self-heal at ambient temperature without any external trigger or detectable change in the environment such as light or temperature. This new class of material has promising potential for building flexible electronic devices.

A research team is creating a new cancer-spotting tool that health care providers could eventually use in areas that lack hospitals, clinics and other treatment centers. The tool is based upon a unique gold biosensor the research team created. When paired with a computer or smartphone and other inexpensive tools, the system is capable of spotting cancer biomarkers from a blood sample.

Engineers have developed a technique to fabricate ultrathin semiconducting films made from a host of exotic materials other than silicon. To demonstrate their technique, the researchers fabricated flexible films made from gallium arsenide, gallium nitride, and lithium fluoride — materials that exhibit better performance than silicon but until now have been prohibitively expensive to produce in functional devices.

The efficiency of solar cells can be increased by thin-film contacts. Improving the performance of solar cells requires scrutinizing every aspect of their design. First, this means improving the crystalline quality of the absorbing material to maximize the conversion of photons to negatively charged electrons and positively charged holes. Next, the device's architecture must be optimized to ensure these charge carriers can move efficiently…

Graphene is a material used in coating, cell phones and even some sporting goods - and soon, will be used under the hood in Ford vehicles, a first in automotive. Ford, along with Eagle Industries and XG Sciences, has found a way to use a very small amount of graphene while achieving major property improvements - more lightweight, better heat conductivity and noise reduction.

IDTechEx spoke to Boréas Technologies' Founder and CEO Simon Chaput about their product and their ambitions to disrupt the haptics market today.

VDL provides contract manufacturing - from cars and electric buses to manufacturing machines for flexible electronics. This profile focuses on their work with flexible/printed electronics.