Highly conductive Ultraflexible Graphene

Completed

Energy Efficiency(Residential and commercial)
Not Energy Related

Basic and strategic applied research

PHYSICAL SCIENCES AND MATHEMATICS (Chemistry)
PHYSICAL SCIENCES AND MATHEMATICS (Physics)

Not Cross-cutting

Professor AC Ferrari
Engineering
University of Cambridge

Standard

EPSRC

01 April 2015

31 March 2016

12 months

£99,421

Materials processing

East of England

Manufacturing : Manufacturing

Professor AC Ferrari, Engineering, University of Cambridge

Dr F Torrisi, Engineering, University of Cambridge

Graphene's unique properties make it ideal for a variety of applications, in particular for ultraflexible electronic devices,such as displays, touch screens, e-papers, smart packaging and smart textiles. These require flexible conductive films aselectrodes and interconnections, and metallic films or grids are currently used as back planes in displays and touchscreens. However, in addition to being expensive, these are environmentally unstable, brittle and not fully flexible (e.g.conformable). Graphene as a flexible conductive layer could underpin plastic electronics advantages of low temperatureprocessing, printing flexibility and lower cost manufacturing. This project aims to demonstrate the viability of graphene as ahighly conductive flexible layer in a flexible active matrix array that can be used to drive Electrophoretic (EPD) and OrganicLight Emitting Diode (OLED) displays. This will exploit graphene based inks as a cost-effective replacement of currentlyused expensive metals, and will demonstrate the manufacturability and scalability of the production of graphene in anindustrial context. Inks will be formulated with high loading of graphene (>10g/l), to achieve the required conductivity andprocessability for a variety of printing technologies (bar coating, ink-jet printing and flexographic printing) for flexible activematrix arrays that can be used to drive EPDs and OLEDs. Integrating graphene in a flexible active matrix array will show the potential for graphene in enabling a range of foldable consumer electronics applications

19/06/15