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]




















Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
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.