MURI — Roll-to-Roll Printed Electronics

New Electronic Inks

The development and integration of innovative printable electronic materials is a core activity of the team since a diverse suite of materials is required for printed circuits, including high conductivity metals for electrodes and interconnects, high capacitance/low leakage gate dielectrics for capacitors and thin film transistors (TFTs), and high-mobility n-type and p-type semiconductors for complementary, low-power logic.

Hersam, Lewis, Marks, and Frisbie will focus on the development of each of these materials systems as printable ink formulations.

Below, a photograph from the laboratory of Mark Hersam, Northwestern University, showing diameter-sorted carbon nanotubes. The sorting process allows very high-quality nanotube inks to be prepared in which all the tubes have the same electronic characteristics.

Types of new electronic inks

We'll be examining many types of electronic inks, including:

• Transition metal oxides
• Polymer semiconductors
• Small-molecule semiconductors
• Danoparticle-based inks