Press Release

Inorganic printed electronics employs new compounds

There are huge opportunities for companies providing inorganic chemicals to printed and potentially printed electronics. Here, Dr Peter Harrop, Chairman, IDTechEx, summarises some of the findings from the new IDTechEx report Inorganic and Composite Printed Electronics 2009-2019

There are huge opportunities for companies specialising in inorganic chemicals to do business in the bold new world of printed and potentially printed, thin film electronics. Their skills will be tested to the limit in making nanoparticle, particle free and other printable ink often with low temperature annealing capability.

Premium pricing awaits but there are the challenges of preparing most of the above inks in the very different rheology, viscosity and the different annealing temperatures and times and so on needed for the different printing machines from litho to inkjet and the different substrates. For example, agglomeration of the nano particles is a problem with the doped nano silicon inks being prepared for market by several suppliers. There is the basis of a huge new industry of inorganic chemicals for printed electronics, many of them highly patented.

Most printed electronics relies on inorganic materials and that will continue to be the case. Well rehearsed are forms of flexible photovoltaics based on silicon ink, copper indium gallium diselenide CIGS, dye sensitised solar cells based on titanium dioxide, iodine and ruthenium. Then there are those using cadmium telluride and cadmium selenide and those with multiple thin films employing GaAs, Ge and so on in one device. However, there is even more coming along, including Fe3O4 , Au/TiO2, MgB2, LaAlO3, and other compounds. These promise printed photovoltaics that harvests infrared, light and ultraviolet in one device.

In an alternative approach, Ohio State University dopes oligothiophene with molybdenum and tungsten to generate power in response to light of wavelengths from ultraviolet to near infrared.

IDTechEx find that of all of printed, organic and flexible electronics in 2009, the majority are based on inorganic materials.

Now, the U. S. Department of Energy's (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is seeking project proposals as part of recently announced DOE funding to accelerate commercialization of solar energy technologies. NREL also announced partnerships with 13 U.S. small solar businesses, which have the capability to enter the market by 2012.

Within this, Ascent Solar Technologies, Inc. will develop zinc magnesium oxide window layers enabling high performance mid-bandgap CIGS photovoltaics on polyimide modules. This offers the potential to increase the performance of the devices through an increase in the absorber band gap.

Phosphorescent OLEDs, such as those employing iridium based dyes, have been developed by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in the USA and others.