(538a) Engineering Materials and Processes for Flexible Electronics

Printed electronics is a new technology envisioning the fabrication of electronic devices using solution processable materials and printing methodologies. In this presentation I will describe the materials synthesis, development, and process engineering enabling the fabrication of unconventional electronic and opto-electronic devices, such as transistors, circuits and solar modules, all on flexible foils using several new materials. Materials development include new synthetic, green routes to semiconducting polymers. Examples of unconventional electronic materials include organic small molecular and polymeric semiconductors, metal chelates and complexes, and hybrid organic-inorganic metal oxides. Thus, we will show the fabrication of polymer based complementary circuits with excellent performance (field-effect mobilities ~ 1-6 cm²/Vs), flexible amorphous oxides TFTs (field-effect mobilities ~ 5-40 cm²/Vs) as well as polymeric donor-fullerene solar cells with efficiencies approaching 11% in inverted architectures.