Advanced Materials & Nanotechnology

Biography

Biography: Rodrigo Martins

Abstract

Printable electronics and flexible electronics are the key areas of development world-wide once offer the potential to add functionality to everyday objects at very low costs that would be difficult with conventional technologies. This was pushed by the large success of organic electronics over the past few decades due to their attractive features such as low process temperatures, good mechanical flexibility, light weight and the possibility to use a wide range of substrates and being recyclable. Besides that we can prepare these devices using inexpensive solution processes over large areas. These benefits offered by printable and embedded electronics have been recognized in many sectors. Nevertheless the bottle neck here is the low electronic performances so far achieved. On the other hand, metal oxide electronic materials are quite attractive since they are reliable, able to be process at low temperature and present excellent electronic performance at 1-2D scales, providing so a large variety of different and possible applications, going from low costs to high complex systems able to compete with silicon in applications like transparent electronics, optoelectronics, magneto electronics, photonics, spintronics, thermo-electrics, piezoelectrics, power harvesting, hydrogen storage and environmental waste management. In terms of production techniques, RF magnetron sputtering has been well established and has demonstrated high performance devices, as ALD. However, these require complex equipment’s, especially if we are targeting low cost applications. In contrast, the solution process has many advantages such as large-area deposition, roll-to-roll capability and easy control of composition, atmospheric processing and low cost. In parallel, we have been observing a rapid and growing interest concerning the utilization of biological materials for a wide range of applications. One of the most representative example is cellulose, not only in the form of raw material mainly for pulp and paper production, but also in the development of advanced materials/products with tailor-made properties, especially the ones based on nanostructures, for low cost and disposable applications. In this presentation, we will review the main applications of vegetal and bacterial cellulose in electronics, either as substrate (passive) or as a real electronic material (active), taking into account the expertise as well as the major developments already done at CENIMAT|i3N in the area of paper electronics.