Research Projects

POESIE & InterPhase: 14,5 mio. Euro for Research at InnovationLab

Two ambitious research projects launched their activities at InnovationLab in Heidelberg. Our aim was to resolve fundamental questions regarding the optimization of materials, processes and design schemes for the manufacturing of printed electronics. The outcome of these projects will provide a decisive contribution towards the commercialization of this emerging, resource-efficient technology.

Why printed electronics and what will it be used for?

Using printing technologies for the production of electronic components will lead to devices with intriguing new properties such as transparency, flexibility, or stretchability. These properties will enable innovative product solutions in fields such as energy conversion, bioelectronics or medical diagnostics. Furthermore, biological and technical sensor systems are creating new opportunities for applications and for an economic utilization in the field of medical engineering. Being a cost-efficient method of mass production printed electronics present a tremendous potential for savings and therefore enables ubiquitous applications of electronic systems. However, before this vision can become a reality, a fundamental understanding of the interplay between material properties, printing processes and performance limiting effects at device interfaces needs to be developed. Both projects will make important contributions to this understanding.

Interphase
Funding period:      01.12.2015 - 30.11.2019                                                 
Funding volume:     7,4 Mio. Euro                                              
 

POESIE
Funding period:      01.09.2015 - 28.02.2019
Funding volume:     7 Mio. Euro

Within the INFORM project, funded by the EU Framework Program for Research and Innovation Horizon 2020 as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action, the team elucidates how interfacial composition, microstructure, structural and energetic order/disorder and molecular conformation at the interfaces impact the optoelectronic phenomena, how they determine the performance of organic and inorganic/organic hybrid devices and their lifetime, and use this gained knowledge to design more reliable structures that can be manufactured over large areas for the benefit of the European technology space.

Most importantly, they use their research activities as the ultimate platform for training highly skilled mobile scientists with strong interdisciplinary skills and insight. The accrued training is widely transferable to other advanced functional materials, electronics & photonics, manufacturing and energy areas. As much of the research activity involves development, processing and application, awareness and capability in relation to these are also established, INFORM will help the EU maintain a supply of much-needed versatile researchers.

In this project, new materials, concepts, components, manufacturing processes and software for printed organic circuits with integrated sensors are to be developed for applications in the packaging sector. In the future, these systems could be used as printed "smart labels". "Smart labels" are intelligent and flexible transponders which, together with their antennas, are applied to a film and can transmit information. Their main use is in the logistics and packaging sector.

Printed circuit technology on flexible substrates allows flexible displays to be made in a cost-effective way, for example for use in packaging and coded price displays on shelves. The aim of this project is to develop materials and manufacturing processes and test prototype displays with integrated control circuits and line control for displays.

Combining new organic materials with large-scale printing processes allows the manufacture of forward-looking products, such as transparent photovoltaic films or flexible light diodes. This project aims to revolutionize printing technology using innovative printing processes and functional materials with nano components. In a three-tiered approach, from laboratory scale through to the production environment, the partners are working together to optimize interplay between materials, applications and printing processes.

Large-scale printing and coating processes have the potential to significantly reduce the manufacturing costs for organic light diodes and to use flexible films as substrate carriers. The aim of this project is to investigate, by way of examples, whether emitter/matrix systems which have already been developed for evaporation processes can be transferred to printing processes.

Components and circuits based on organic electronics allow sensors to be mass produced in a cost-effective way. This makes new applications possible, for example in medical technology. The use of organic electronics brings with it significant improvements in the production, recycling and performance of sensors. Neither precious nor heavy metals are needed for production. The aim of this project is to develop a measuring device for the continuous determination of the blood sugar level, which allows ongoing decisions on treatment, reliable warnings for hypo- and hyperglycemia and direct control of an insulin pump (artificial pancreas).

The aim of this joint project is to work on a new kind of technology for the chemical conversion of carbon dioxide (CO₂) into fuel or useful chemical products with the help of sunlight. This can help to achieve sustainable use of resources and a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. In this, the focus is on the production of methanol, a climate-neutral fuel in combustion motors or fuel cells. It is not just the technological approach which is innovative using specially functionalized semiconductor nano particles as catalysts but also the goal of using industrial exhaust gas flows as a possible source of useful products.

The CIS technology currently used in the manufacture of thin film photovoltaics is based on vacuum deposition processes. The intention is to further develop this technology towards complete printability in the course of the project. In terms of future prospects, a particular aim is tandem cells in which the usable IR portion of the sunlight spectrum is harvested by inorganic nano semiconductors and the visible part of the spectrum by the rapidly developing organic films. The project goals are efficient printed absorber films in laboratory quantities and the realization of liquid-processed inorganic/organic tandem solar cells.

The use of aqueous or alcoholic polymer nanoparticle dispersions avoids environmentally harming, toxic or carcinogenic solvents for the production of organic solar cells. This is particularly important for low-cost and large-scale printing or coating process in the future. The project partners contribute to this project with their knowledge about the synthesis of nanoparticle dispersions and device production.