As the Internet of Things Drives Demand for Low Cost Electronics, a Study of Roll-to-Roll Printed Organics Reveals an Inkron Product as a Preferred Material of Choice
Helsinki/Munich (PRWEB) March 03, 2015
Inkron Oy, a leading manufacturer of advanced materials for the lighting, LED, display, optical, semiconductor and printed electronics industries, today revealed its contribution to technology developments led by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd.. The goal of the collaboration was to test a commercially scalable roll-to-roll (R2R) printing process for the fabrication of printed organic thin film transistors. Inkron’s core technology platform, based on new nanomaterials and siloxane polymer chemistries, provides a variety of products for emerging printed electronics applications including solar cells, wearables, sensors, displays, touch screens and transistors. Please visit us in Munich at LOPEC 2015 conference at booth #B0 102 to learn about Inkron’s offerings for advanced printed electronics applications.
In a publication in the January 2015 issue of Organic Electronics, authors by VTT and BASF highlighted Inkron’s IPC-114 product as the preferred material for the fabrication of the gate metal layer in a R2R printed organic transistor process. A key benefit of this product is its solvent-less nature thereby avoiding damage to the underlying organic device layers (e.g. dielectric and/or semiconductor) that often degrades the transistor performance when traditional solvent-based metal inks are being used. Further, the IPC-114 product is fully compatible with a R2R rotary screen-printing process and temperature-sensitive substrates, and provides metal films with electrical conductivity well exceeding the current requirements of printed organic transistors and circuitry. Inkron’s novel material platform provides solutions for a number of printed electronics applications and includes printable and/or photo-patternable dielectrics in addition to a variety of metallization products suitable for different processes (e.g. screen printing, ink jetting etc.) and applications.
“In this project, VTT evaluated a number of commercially available metal pastes and inks for printing of organic transistors. We decided to use Inkron’s IPC 114 product due to its solvent-free nature, excellent processability and conductivity in both sheet-to-sheet and roll-to-roll printing processes, ” commented Senior Scientist Dr. Marja Vilkman of VTT. “Additionally we were very satisfied with the responsive support we received from Inkron,” continued Dr. Vilkman.
Inkron’s inks and pastes for printed electronics applications are designed to meet the tightest customer and application related requirements. Inkron’s unique advantage, its in-house integrated R&D and production capability of both novel siloxane polymers and metal particles, allows it to offer a highly customized solution for a given application. Inkron can tune the average particle size from a few to hundreds of nanometers while still exhibiting very narrow particle size distributions yielding a number of desirable properties such as high electrical and thermal conductivity, low sintering temperatures, good printing and process compatibility as well as high stability.
“Industry organizations like IDTechEx are predicting that advanced materials like conductive inks and pastes will be a $ 2B market this year alone as the adoption of printed electronics continues to gain traction in the marketplace,” said Juha Rantala, CEO of Inkron. “Our suite of nanocomposite materials are designed to specifically address not only the cost hurdles facing the printed electronics industry, but the challenges that result from working with high performance, but sensitive organic materials. By achieving high thermal and electrical conductivity, while being compatible with high throughput R2R printing processes, our solvent-free materials are the ideal building blocks for current and future technologies.”
About Inkron
Inkron is a developer and manufacturer of next generation materials for the LED, lighting, display, optical, semiconductor, printed electronics, and energy storage industries. Our novel and cost effective manufacturing process for nanomaterials, along with our advanced siloxane polymer chemistry capabilities enable the development of a wide range of customized material properties with superior performance advantages in high-tech applications. In addition to Inkron’s own product development and offerings, the company also presents the opportunity to its customers and partners to conduct contract development and manufacturing to provide unique and optimized solutions to materials challenges currently not addressed by commercial markets. Please visit us at http://www.inkron.com
Contact
MissionCTRL for Inkron
inkron(at)missionctrlcommunications(dot)com
Inkron Oy
Tekniikantie 2
Fin-02150 Espoo
Finland
http://www.inkron.com