Advancing printed electronics and materials with lab-on-a-printer technology

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The general area of printed electronics has grown very rapidly in recent years. The global market is estimated at $24B and expected to grow to $340B by 2030 with Canada's share at $1.2B by 2020. The long-term objectives of the proposed research program are to develop new knowledge, technology, techniques, and materials that hold the potential to fundamentally accelerate the development of printed electronics.******One of the most important challenges in developing a new printable electronic device is that processing parameters, material composition, and geometry are coupled in complex and non-linear ways to affect structure, function, performance, durability, flexibility, and lifetime. Aspects such as the nature of solvent evaporation, self-assembly of particles or monomers, interlayer solvent interactions, and liquid dynamics in drying structures all contribute to morphology, structure, and ultimately performance. As a consequence, we find radical differences in electronic and optical properties for small changes in the process conditions. ******The application of combinatorial testing and optimization, an empirical method whereby many device variants are fabricated and tested to explore these complex design spaces has only recently been considered. Current printing platforms are not developed to apply this methodology economically and as a consequence there are very few reported examples. We are only now able to realize this capacity and its benefits through fundamental research and development of a targeted combinatorial testing and optimization platform based on the lab-on-a-printer (LOP) technology being explored in the lab of the PI. The key feature enabling this proposed research is that these LOP systems have the unique capability of providing software control over both the geometry and composition of the printed structure, allowing for rapid fabrication of complex device variants with both structural and compositional changes in one step. ******The research program to be supported by this proposed Discovery Grant will enable breakthroughs in our understanding of fundamental aspects of printed electronics technology. The objectives of the research are to: (1) understand the fundamental mechanisms and processes involved in the fabrication and function of printed electronics; (2) explore techniques to accelerate printed device development based on combinatorial device testing and optimization; (3) advance the experimental lab-on-a-printer platform technology, and (4) demonstrate and validate these approaches on printed high mobility carbon nanotube transistor and chemical microsensors that hold the potential to realize significant performance breakthroughs in printed electronics.