Printable and flexible photodetectors via scalable fabrication for reading applications

Printing techniques have been widely adopted in the fabrication of flexible electronic components. However, its application is still limited in complex control and communication circuitry due to the low performance and low fabrication uniformity amongst printed devices, compared to conventional elec...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Communications engineering 2022-12, Vol.1 (1), Article 40
Main Authors: Bairaktaris, Georgios, Khan, Fasihullah, Jayawardena, K. D. J. Imalka, Frohlich, David M., Sporea, Radu A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
639/166/987
639/301/930
Circuits
Complexity
Design
Electronic components
Electronic systems
Electronics
Engineering
Flexibility
Light
Low cost
Multimedia
Photometers
Polyethylene
Robustness
Sensors
User interface
User interfaces
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Summary:Printing techniques have been widely adopted in the fabrication of flexible electronic components. However, its application is still limited in complex control and communication circuitry due to the low performance and low fabrication uniformity amongst printed devices, compared to conventional electronics. Thus, the electronic systems in real-world applications are hybrid integrations of printed and conventional electronics. Here we demonstrate a low-cost, low-complexity, fully-printable flexible photodetector that can withstand over 100 1 mm-radius bending cycles using a simple and scalable two-step fabrication process. The prototypes are implemented in an augmented book system to automatically detect the ambient light through optical apertures on paper of a printed book, and then transmit the information to an adjunct device. This technique demonstrates the utility of low-cost materials and processes for robust large area sensing applications and could act as a gateway to pertinent multimedia information. Bairaktaris and colleagues developed a printable flexible photodetector using a simple, scalable fabrication process. The photodetectors were demonstrated in practice in an augmented paper system. This low-cost technique could be also applied in robust and large-scale user interfaces.
ISSN:2731-3395
2731-3395
DOI:10.1038/s44172-022-00041-4