Flexible quantum dot light-emitting devices for targeted photomedical applications

Quantum dot light‐emitting devices (QLEDs), originally developed for displays, were recently demonstrated to be promising light sources for various photomedical applications, including photodynamic therapy cancer cell treatment and photobimodulation cell metabolism enhancement. With exceptional emission wavelength tunability and potential...

Lifetime limitations in organic electronic devices due to metal electrochemical migration

Operational lifetime is a critical performance parameter of organic electronic devices and can be cut short by multiple degradation mechanisms. One supposed cause is metal migration between the electrodes, which, however, is difficult to study independently of other failure modes. We present a setup, which excludes such competing processes and...

Electro-deposition as a repair method for embedded metal grids

A method is presented to self-repair cracks in embedded silver grid structures used in large area organic electronics. The repair procedure is based on electro-deposition, incited by the application of a moderate DC voltage across the crack. During this process the organic anode that is in direct electrical contact with the silver grid,...

Conductive Screen Printing Inks by Gelation of Graphene Dispersions

This paper describes the gelation of highly concentrated graphene/polymer dispersions triggered by mild heating. The gel formation is only dependent on the concentration of graphene with 3.25 mg mL-1 as the minimum value for graphene network formation. The graphene gel is then utilized for the preparation of colloidally stable and highly...

Hybrid printed electronics

Although many electronic functionalities can be realized by printed or organic electronics, short-term marketable products often require robust, reproducible, and nondisturbing technologies. In this chapter we show how hybrid electronics, a combination of printed circuitry, thin-film electronics, and classical silicon-based electronics, may give...

Photonic Flash Sintering of Ink-Jet-Printed Back Electrodes for Organic Photovoltaic Applications

A study of the photonic flash sintering of a silver nanoparticle ink printed as the back electrode for organic solar cells is presented. A number of sintering settings with different intensities and pulse durations have been tested on both full-area and grid-based silver electrodes, using the complete emission spectrum of the flash lamps from UV...

Laser-induced forward transfer of high-viscosity silver precursor ink for non-contact printed electronics

Non-contact printing techniques are receiving increasing interest in the field of printed electronics, because they can be used to pattern various inks on arbitrary substrates without applying mechanical pressure or damaging pre-patterned components. The ink-jet process is frequently used for non-contact printing of various conductive inks....

Inkjet printing as a roll-to-roll compatible technology for the production of large area electronic devices on a pre-industrial scale

Inkjet printing is a promising approach towards the solution processing of electronic devices on an industrial scale. Of particular interest is the production of high-end applications such as large area OLEDs on flexible substrates. Roll-to-roll (R2R) processing technologies involving inkjet printing have especially high potential, since they...

Breaking the limits of line width and aspect ratio for inkjet printed conductive lines by controlling post-deposition ink contraction

Electrically conductive structures comprising both narrow line widths and high aspect ratios are indispensable components of many electronic devices. Producing them reliably on an industrial scale by inkjet printing of metal-based inks is a serious challenge. Firstly, due to spreading of the ink on the substrate, widths of 30 microns are...

UHF electromagnetic structures inkjet printed on temperature sensitive substrates: A comparative study of conductive inks and sintering methods to enable low cost manufacture

In this paper we demonstrate the use of inkjet printing as a facile digital fabrication tool for the cost effective manufacture of UHF RFID transfer tattoo tags and Frequency Selective Surfaces on low-cost flexible and porous substrates. Electrical and morphological properties of conductive features obtained from a range of metal nanoparticle...

Inkjet printing and low temperature sintering for organic electronic applications

In recent years, inkjet printing is increasingly used as a flexible and digital patterning technique in order to deposit functional materials for the manufacturing of microelectronic applications, including radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, organic photovoltaics (OPV), organic light emitting diodes (OLED) and printed circuit boards....

Roll-to-roll compatible sintering of inkjet printed features by photonic and microwave exposure: From non-conductive ink to 40% bulk silver conductivity in less than 15 seconds

A combination of photonic and microwave flash exposure is used to sinter inkjet printed silver nanoparticles. This approach leads to conductive features on polymer substrates in short times that are compatible with roll-to-roll production. The sequential process of sintering the as-printed features revealed a final conductivity of 40% of bulk...

Photonic flash sintering of silver nanoparticle inks: A fast and convenient method for the preparation of highly conductive structures on foil

Silver nanoparticle inks printed on temperature-sensitive substrates can be converted into structures with high electrical conductivities within fractions of a second by photonic flash sintering. The key principle is the selective heating of the ink by the absorption of strongly focused pulsed light for which the substrate is transparent. The...

Current collecting grids for R2R processed organic solar cells

Exposure to highly focussed flash light (photonic flash sintering) has been developed as a technology to successfully cure printed metal inks on temperature sensitive plastic substrates. In contrast to the traditional approach of thermal oven sintering, conductivities up to 30% of the value of bulk silver can be achieved within a few seconds...

Combined sintering approaches for fast sintering of inkjet printed nanoparticles for R2R applications

Inkjet printing is a nascent technology that developed during the last decades from only printing text and graphics into an important scientific research tool for R&D, where printers are used as a highly reproducible non-contact patterning tool. In contrast to lithography, inkjet printing is an additive technique that requires only small amounts...