Scientists synthesize plastic suitable for printing electronics

A team composed of academic and corporate scientists from the US and UK have succeeded in creating a conductive plastic that could soon lead to the cheap printable electronics that we're often promised but have yet to see. Researchers from Merck, PARC, and Stanfords University and Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory were able to tweak the structure of a regular organic polymer to create a so-called "semi-conducting polythiopene," which improves upon standard silicon in that it can be laid down using simple inkjet printing techniques while at the same time producing less waste. Although the new material will never replace silicon as the choice for hardcore computing applications, the fact that this team has already created transistors with the new technology may mean that the promised land of ubiquitous, disposable e-paper is closer than we think.

[Via Futurismic]

[karmaghost @ Mar 21st 2006 8:13AM]

kool-aid?

[Felix @ Mar 21st 2006 8:29AM]

Cheap is good news, disposable ain't! That's more stuff in landfills,

[dreampc @ Mar 21st 2006 8:37AM]

Wow!!

Print Shop Pro on a dot matrix printer!

[PodMonkeys @ Mar 21st 2006 8:48AM]

It'll be cool when you can design electronics circuits in an app, then print them for use. It'd make for some fun hobby tinkering.

[Shumway @ Mar 21st 2006 8:48AM]

This seems like something very, very sweet. But how long until we get it and how useful it really will be is what I'm wondering about

[Rome @ Mar 21st 2006 8:57AM]

This material must be lighter and flexible that the hard silcon boards. I know I wouldn't want a mother board made from this, or would I?

Then you could make flexible computers which could prove useful.

[Gr1zz @ Mar 21st 2006 9:02AM]

So many big words and no hard evidence, this smells like those pharmasudical companys that rush out "We cured AIDS" press releases just to inflate their stock.

[Sam @ Mar 21st 2006 9:08AM]

didn't Siemens announce something along these lines a couple of months ago?? Sorry for the long link...
http://www.siemens.com/index.jsp?sdc_p=i1187237lmn1195956o1319922pFEcfs2u20z3&sdc_bcpath=1195956.s_2%2C&sdc_sid=7609091329&

[Andy C. @ Mar 21st 2006 10:11AM]

"... the new technology may mean that the promised land of ubiquitous, disposable e-paper is closer than we think."

Um, I thought the point of e-paper was to reuse it? If you want disposable paper, just use...PAPER! The point of e-paper is to provide a replacement for paper that can be reused over an over so we can stop cutting the rainforests down and save the human race from extinction at the hands of global warming.

[Jake @ Mar 21st 2006 10:11AM]

It's probably a polythiophene and not "polythiopene".

[Jon @ Mar 21st 2006 11:07AM]

Who wrote this article?? How's this sentence for you: "Researchers from Merck, PARC, and Stanfords University and Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory..."

How many mistakes do you see? How about actually naming the company that owns/runs PARC (Xerox) How about spelling Stanford correctly? How about using commas and lists correctly (remove 'and' before Stanford and add a comma after University)???

[Will @ Mar 21st 2006 11:17AM]

Stanfords university? did they help develop the internets?

[Deviant @ Mar 21st 2006 12:18PM]

Andy C.

One use of epaper COULD be to reuse, but another could be to have moving images. It was a bold move for USA Today to introduce color newspaper to the masses.

It would be a bolder move to print a paper that had full multimedia of articles and advertisements. Reuse might be more expensive to build in.

As for the rainforest, the paper companies are cropping fast growing poplar, etc. for paper in those regions, as opposed to needing the old growth.

[Jake T @ Mar 21st 2006 12:19PM]

Where does the battery go?

[Mart @ Mar 21st 2006 1:40PM]

Whoever works out how to print electronics onto actual paper is going to clean up. The paper industry isn't going anywhere, and it continues to get bigger and bigger, so why fight it? Instead, work with it. If the inks used are also benign, environment-wise then you've got a real winner. I agree that it would be a disaster if this e-paper was thought of as disposable whilst being bad for the environment.

[Vladi @ Mar 21st 2006 1:59PM]

I cant wait to pirate GeForce 9800gtxt ULTRA blueprints of a torrent site and then print one out!!!

[Matt @ Mar 23rd 2006 6:32AM]

This is old news. The research department as my university was printing circuits onto paper using inkjet technology almost 6 years ago (2000). Combined with a conductive glue to attach components they made a prototype flexible telephone that worked without any complications. Get with the times people! A year or so after that and they had begun to print components such as resistors and capacitors using patterns of ultra thin lines, cutting down assembly and component cost.