Obviously, printing electronics on industrial inkjet printers is cheaper and cleaner than repeatedly treating silicon wafers with acids and gases. Today, inkjet technologies have entered the production of OLED, and in the future they promise to push the development of printed electronics. For example, the Germans offer to print photodiodes for communication needs and not only.
Research team from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) printed organic photodiodes that are capable of capturing specified wavelengths of light radiation. Currently, photodetectors are widely used in motion sensors, cameras, light barriers, and a host of other applications. In the future, photodiodes may be widely used for data transmission in the visible range. This is a relatively new topic of wireless communication based on indoor lighting systems.
According to industry analysts, a visible-band internal building network is much more secure (more resistant to hacking) than traditional WLAN or Bluetooth. Printing photodetectors can speed up and cheapen the spread of networks of this type. It will be possible to arm wearable electronics on flexible substrates and devices for the Internet of Things with printed sensors.
Scientists from Karlsruhe were able to develop compositions of materials based on organic compounds that capture light radiation of a strictly specified wavelength. The production of such detectors, as mentioned above, is adapted for inkjet printing.
An article about the results of the study was published in Advanced Materials (access to the original article is free ). The highlight of the discovery is that the sensors work without color filters. This increases sensitivity, because the material of the photodetector directly interacts with light, and currents in its structure arise only under the influence of specified wavelengths. Plus to all this reduction in the cost of production. By the way, according to German scientists, the presented technology is ready for mass production.
Source: 3dnews.ru