Flexible Electronics
There will be impacts for Australia through the development of the plastic electronics of the future.
- 23 August 2008 | Updated 14 October 2011
Imagine portable electronic devices where the plastic casing is actually a solar cell – flat batteries will be a thing of the past.
Imagine a rollout or foldout screen from your mobile phone that allows you to watch full colour television, a movie, or read the newspaper or your favourite novel with all the convenience of a flexible A4 sized format.
The convergence of nanotechnology, conducting polymers and methods for controlling polymer structure on a molecular level, form the basis of an emerging technology that is turning these ideas in to reality.
Research aim
Flexible electronics is a key focus of CSIRO's Future Manufacturing Flagship. The Flagship was formed with the aim of adding further value to existing high value-adding segments of the manufacturing industry and creating a new wave of niche industries based on nanotechnology.
CSIRO's increased investment in flexible electronics research will act as a catalyst to the creation of world-leading Australian businesses in the field of polymer electronics.
The Flagship is using its world-class leadership in polymer science to develop the molecular building blocks and architectures that will form the basis of this plastic electronics revolution.
The Future Manufacturing Flagship's Flexible Electronics Theme has two major research streams:
- organic photovoltaics
- integrated plastic electronics
Through these research areas we will develop disruptive technologies and products such as:
- photovoltaic cells
- printable polymer electronics.
Delivering research outcomes to domains such as:
- energy
- materials
- health
- environment.
Capabilities
Our research efforts are supported by state-of-the-art facilities and instrumentation for structure/property characterisation, for scaling up laboratory procedures to pilot plant volumes, through to device fabrication and testing.
Materials discovery and optimisation is based on high-throughput methodologies integrating computational modelling, design of experiments (DoE) and parallel and high-throughput synthesis, purification and characterisation.
Our scale-up facilities are equipped with temperature controlled reactors with capacities ranging from several litres up to 500 litres for polymer and precursor production.
The group’s specific areas of expertise include:
- synthetic inorganic, organic and polymer science
- surface science
- device fabrication for testing of new materials
- materials characterisation
- high throughput synthesis, processing and characterisation
- polymer design
- substrate modification
- encapsulation
- photo-physics
- printing
- barrier coatings.
Learn more about the Future Manufacturing Flagship.
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Fast facts
- Future Manufacturing Flagship are using nanotechnology and conductive polymers to develop new plastic electronics that will change our lives like the first microchip did
- Polymer science will develop the molecular building blocks and architectures that will form the basis of this plastic electronics revolution
- Our research efforts are supported by state-of-the-art facilities and instrumentation for structure and property characterisation
