Additive Manufacturing Towards Electronically-Active Surfaces

Abstract

Ubiquitous and imperceptible integration of optoelectronic devices into the world around us would allow for novel modes of energy harvesting, communications, sensing, information display and computing. To date, owing to the availability of foundries and scalable processing modalities, this has been achieved via fabrication of discrete elements which are then deterministically positioned throughout the world via pick-and-place assembly. Alternatively, availability of large-area, ultra-thin and continuous elements would enable seamless integration of electronics onto surfaces around us much like a second skin.

Thin-film electronics, often fabricated with sub-micron device-functional layer thicknesses, present an avenue towards such mechanically imperceptible, large-area and continuous integration of electronics onto any surface of choice – a paradigm which we refer to as Active Surfaces. Herein, we report on developing transferable large-area ultra-thin organic photovoltaics, decoupling their manufacturing from the final integration thereby allowing the electrification of any surface of interest. In particular, we discuss scalable manufacturing methods to fabricate fully-printed ultra-thin photovoltaic modules, their integration onto light-weight and high strength composite fabrics, present the development of equivalently ultra-thin encapsulation films, introduce an approach to solution-coat ultra-thin substrates which can subsequently be used as the releasable carrier for devices and highlight further advances necessary to translate this into a commercially viable technology.