Saarinen J.J., Ihalainen P., Määttänen A., Bollström R., Peltonen J.
Abo Akademi University, FI
Keywords: coating, inkjet, printed functionality, roughness, sensing, wetting
Recently we have developed a new biobased substrate for printed functionality that, compared to the conventional plastic films, is recyclable and renewable based on natural fibers. Inkjet printed transistor functionality has already been realized and here we summarize our recent developments in sensoring and liquid actuating devices fabricated on the developed substrate by roll-to-roll all-printing process. Here we demonstrate two new functionalities realized on renewable biobased substrate. First, the substrate is utilized as a UV-A detector with printed conductive silver electrodes and UV-A sensitive polyaniline (PANI) conductive polymer region. PANI changes its resistivity under UV-A illumination and hence the device can operate as a very low cost UV-A detector. Secondly, we demonstrate external electric field driven liquid actuation on the developed substrate. It is well-known e.g. in microfluidics devices that electric field can be used for liquid actuation by means of electrophoresis, electro-osmosis, etc. We show induced wetting of water droplets on the substrate under external electric field that can be used, for example, in analyte mixing and detection with a more complex design of electrodes. It is believed that renewable natural fiber based substrates will find many applications in future in printed functionality such as sensors and analyte detectors.
Journal: TechConnect Briefs
Volume: 2, Nanotechnology 2010: Electronics, Devices, Fabrication, MEMS, Fluidics and Computational
Published: June 21, 2010
Pages: 527 - 530
Industry sectors: Advanced Materials & Manufacturing | Sensors, MEMS, Electronics
Topic: Inkjet Design, Materials & Fabrication
ISBN: 978-1-4398-3402-2