Press releases
Please quote Nature Materials as the source of these items.
March 2006
Plastic electronics rivals amorphous silicon
A polymer with an electronic performance equivalent to that of amorphous silicon has been developed, as reported in the April issue of Nature Materials. The work, carried out by a team of industrial and academic researchers in the UK and the US, demonstrates that printed polymeric materials have finally achieved the speed and performance that will enable them to match that of current transistors.
In the new polymer material, individual molecules align with each other more effectively than ever before. The result is an electronic performance six times better than previously reported. This, coupled with good stability in air, makes such polymers ideal candidates to replace more traditional materials such as amorphous silicon, providing cheap and easy routes to future products.
Electronics made from polymers offer the potential for flexible, low-cost circuits for everyday products. This is possible because the polymers can be processed using simple printing techniques.
Liquid-crystalline semiconducting polymers with high charge-carrier mobility pp328-333
Iain McCulloch, Martin Heeney, Clare Bailey, Kristijonas Genevicius, Iain MacDonald, Maxim Shkunov, David Sparrowe, Steve Tierney, Robert Wagner, Weimin Zhang, Michael L. Chabinyc, R. Joseph Kline, Michael D. Mcgehee And Michael F. Toney
Published online: 19 March 2006 | doi 10.1038/nmat1612
