flexible electronics tagged posts

Dr. Png Rui-Qi (left), Mervin Ang (middle) and Cindy Tang (right) working on conducting polymers that can provide unprecedented ohmic contacts for better performance in a wide range of organic semiconductor devices. Credit: Seah Zong Long

Semiconductors, which are the very basic components of electronic devices, have improved our lives in many ways. They can be found in lighting, displays, solar modules and microprocessors that are installed in almost all modern day devices, from mobile phones, washing machines, and cars, to the emerging Internet of Things. To innovate devices with better functionality and energy efficiency, researchers are constantly looking for better ways to make them, in particular from earth-abundant materials using eco-friendly processes...

Associate Professor Yang Hyunsoo from the National University of Singapore, who led a research team to successfully embed a powerful magnetic memory chip on a plastic material, demonstrating the flexibility of the memory chip. Credit: National University of Singapore

This malleable memory chip is a breakthrough in the flexible electronics revolution, and brings researchers a step closer towards making flexible, wearable electronics a reality in the near future. It looks like a small piece of transparent film with tiny engravings on it, and is flexible enough to be bent into a tube. Yet, this piece of “smart” plastic demonstrates excellent performance in terms of data storage and processing capabilities.

Such devices have great potential in applications such as automotive, healthcare electr...

Highly conductive ultrathin film on skin between clips. Credit: Sam Yoon/Korea University

An ultrathin film that is both transparent and highly conductive to electric current has been produced by a cheap and simple method devised by nanomaterials researchers from the Uni of Illinois at Chicago and Korea University. The film – actually a mat of tangled nanofiber, electroplated to form a “self-junctioned copper nano-chicken wire” – is also bendable and stretchable, offering potential applications in roll-up touchscreen displays, wearable electronics, flexible solar cells and electronic skin.

The new film establishes a “world-record combination of high transparency and low electrical resistance,” the latter at least 10X greater than the previous existing record, said Prof Sam Yoon, Korea Univ...