COMPETENCE CENTERS

The current early stage of development of organic electronics requires that fundamental technological questions be answered in regard to the materials used and manufacturing methods for components for organic light diodes, organic photovoltaics, organic circuits and chips and organic sensor applications. Five competence centers have been founded to find answers to these questions. They are dedicated to the topics of printing, device physics, analytics, simulation and synthesis. In line with the excellence clusters research strategy, these competence centers carry out their work jointly in the cluster partners research and development laboratory at the InnovationLab facilities in Heidelberg. The five competence centers interact closely as their individual activities are based on the research findings from the other centers. For example, molecule designs are drafted for organic materials in the Synthesis competence center. These materials are analyzed by the Analytics competence center in terms of their specific properties. The Simulation competence center then calculates how changes to certain parameters would affect the properties determined. The Synthesis center can use this information to optimize the molecule design for the properties required for applications in the printing process. The electronic components to be printed are characterized and modelled in the Device Physics competence center. Finally, the suitability of the materials for mass production of components using printing technology is evaluated in the Printing competence center.