Vladimir
Bulovic of MIT Organic and Nanostructured Electronics Laboratory spoke on this
unique technology, with some compelling, thought-provoking ideas. First he
asked the audience to consider the trade-off between manufacturing traditional
wafer technology with its complex fabrication processes, albeit using a
relatively simple material (silicon), versus nano materials that by contrast
are rather complex, but can use a simple thin film (roll to roll) process
method with relatively few steps. In short -- a complex process with many steps
to manufacturing using a simple material vs. a complex material using
relatively few steps in manufacturing.
It’s the
latter that Bulvoic likes, and he showed the group the potential of this
thought shift that looks to offer dramatic production cost reductions by
limiting the number of complex steps. Bulvoic said fewer than six synthetic
manufacturing steps would achieve significant gains in cost efficiencies.
To make the
point, he showed an application of this low-cost manufacturing of a complex
nano material by creating solar cells on paper. They created vapor printed
organic electrodes from nano materials applied to newspaper, with the result of
an ITO-free flexible solar cell made of layers and substrate that were
completely flexible. The photo voltaic device was made by simply coating films
on a piece of paper from an organic polymer layer coated with two additional
layers of organic dyes, he said.
These low-cost
solar cells on paper have limitless applications, with some examples that
included secure documents, packaging, ads and entertainment, and more. The discussion then shifted to making a solar
cell invisible with the idea of placing the material on an e-book reader that
would never need conventional recharging again. The possibilities can easily be
extended to wearable devices that gain huge benefits from such functionality. -- Steve Sechrist
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