wearable electronics tagged posts

Some day, your smartphone might completely conform to your wrist, and when it does, it might be covered in pure gold, thanks to researchers at Missouri University of Science and Technology. They have developed a way to “grow” thin layers of gold on single crystal wafers of silicon, remove the gold foils, and use them as substrates on which to grow other electronic materials. This could revolutionize wearable or “flexible” technology research, greatly improving versatility of electronics in the future.

Most research into wearable technology has been done using polymer substrates, or substrates made up of multiple crystals...

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A simple solution-based electrical doping technique could help reduce the cost of polymer solar cells and organic electronic devices, potentially expanding the applications for these technologies. By enabling production of efficient single-layer solar cells, the new process could help move organic photovoltaics into a new generation of wearable devices and enable small-scale distributed power generation.

Developed by researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology and colleagues from 3 other institutions, the technique provides a new way of inducing p-type electrical doping in organic semiconductor films...

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A new, ultrathin film that is both transparent and highly conductive to electric current has been produced by a cheap and simple method devised by an international team of nanomaterials researchers from University of Illinois at Chicago and Korea University. The film is also bendable and stretchable, offering potential applications in roll-up touchscreen displays, wearable electronics, flexible solar cells and electronic skin.

The new film is made of fused silver nanowires, and is produced by spraying the nanowire particles through a tiny jet nozzle at supersonic speed...

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The flexible photovoltaics could power wearable electronics like fitness trackers and smart glasses. “Our photovoltaic is about 1 micrometer thick,” said Jongho Lee, an engineer at the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea. One micrometer is much thinner than an average human hair. Standard photovoltaics are usually hundreds of times thicker, and even most other thin photovoltaics are 2 to 4 times thicker.

They made the ultra-thin solar cells from semiconductor gallium arsenide. They stamped the cells directly onto a flexible substrate without using an adhesive that would add to the material’s thickness...

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