Printed Electronics is a set of printing method used to create electrical devices on various substrates like foil, paper, glass or fabrics, across large areas and at a low cost using conductive plastics/polymersor ink. This term plastic electronics is also described as organic electronics or plastic electronics, in which one or more inks are composed of carbon based compounds, also refers to the ink material which can be deposited using solution based, vacuum based or other processes.
In this process, electrically functional or optical inks are deposited on the substrates to create active or passive devices, such as thin film transistors, capacitors, coils and resistors. There are some solution based materials, which include organic semiconductors, inorganic semiconductors, metallic conductors, nano-particles and nano-tubes.
Applications of Printed Electronics:
Flexible Displays: As the technology continues to advance, today developing flexible screens are possible with printed electronics. Flexible display offers many advantages like ultra-thin, light weight, bendable, portable, shatter-proof energy efficient and unbreakable. Royole is the Shenzhen, China based company manufacturing flexible display.
Smart Labels: Smart labels are the next big wave in labeling industry as printed electronics will replace the traditional labels with smart labels. One day you will have a coffee mug letting you know the temperature of your coffee. Your wine bottle will show you the countdown of its expiry.
Decorative and Animated Posters: Soon we will see a poster at mall which will change its color, change the content and animate accordingly. A company named Read Spot has shown their animated poster at LOPEC 2017. Above given video will give you a brief idea about how actually it works.
Active Clothing: Smart Clothing technology transforms fabric into active, connected and intelligent garments that provide critical bio-metric data which includes heart rate, breathing rate, sleep awareness and muscles tensions. DuPont has introduced its brand Intexar technology for active clothing.
Electronic Skin Patches: Electronics skin patches are the next generation of wearable. Using the printed electronics we can develop electronics devices that wirelessly transmit health data like heart rate, blood oxygen level, skin temperature, ultra violet exposure and skin color change. It doesn’t need batteries to operate.
