Nanomaterials become technologies of choice for high-volume printed electronics

Dan Rogers - 15 Feb 2011

US nanomaterials company QD Vision has taken a further step towards commercially supplying its materials, with two development agreements sealed at the end of 2010.

The deals, signed with chemicals firm Solvay and display manufacturer LG, indicate that the link between the growing printed electronics and nanotechnologies industries is becoming stronger.

QD Vision will work on a means of printing its quantum dot LEDs (QLEDs) for lighting applications with Solvay, while South Korean firm LG is a partner in the creation of next-generation active matrix displays.

Seth Coe-Sullivan, co-founder and CTO of QD Vision, comments: 'We have closed three partnership deals - though I can't talk about the third - and it's not a coincidence that they were closed at around the same time.'

Feasible

Coe-Sullivan feels that the quantum dot (QD) technology is now being taken seriously as a commercial component for displays and lighting.

He adds: 'We've been talking to members of LG for a number of years, but we needed to show that the performance of the technology is compelling enough. For brightness and efficiency, QLEDs will always be compared with OLEDs.'

OLED technology has already been adopted for mainstream products, such as OLED screen smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy S. However, markets like lighting and televisions still require OLED developers to achieve high-volume production - which has been promised in the form of roll-to-roll printing and other simplifications of the manufacturing process.

Manufacturing

Whether nanomaterials such as QDs become a realistic option for these mainstream technologies will be decided by how readily they fit into cheap, high-volume manufacturing.

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This article appears in full in Volume 3, issue 4 of +Plastic Electronics magazine, with analysis of the growing use of nanomaterials in the electronics industry.
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