Nanotechnology Now - Press Release: Metal ink could ease the way toward flexible electronic books, displays

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A picture drawn with conductive ink lights up a green LED.

Credit: American Chemical Society

Abstract:
Scientists are reporting the development of a novel metal ink made of small sheets of copper that can be used to write a functioning, flexible electric circuit on regular printer paper. Their report on the conductive ink, which could pave the way for a wide range of new bendable gadgets, such as electronic books that look and feel more like traditional paperbacks, appears in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.

Metal ink could ease the way toward flexible electronic books, displays

Washington, DC | Posted on January 29th, 2014

Wenjun Dong, Ge Wang and colleagues note that the tantalizing possibilities of flexible electronics, from tablets that roll up to wearable circuits woven into clothes, have attracted a lot of attention in the past decade. But much of the progress toward this coming wave of futuristic products has entailed making circuits using complicated, time-consuming and expensive processes, which would hinder their widespread use. In response, researchers have been working toward a versatile conductive ink. They have tried several materials such as polymers and gold and silver nanostructures. So far, these materials have fallen short in one way or another. So, Dong and Wang's group decided to try copper nanosheets, which are inexpensive and highly conductive, as a flexible circuit ink.

They made copper nanosheets coated with silver nanoparticles in the laboratory and incorporated this material into an ink pen, using it to draw patterns of lines, words and even flowers on regular printer paper. Then, to show that the ink could conduct electricity, the scientists studded the drawings with small LED lights that lit up when the circuit was connected to a battery. To test the ink's flexibility, they folded the papers 1,000 times, even crumpling them up, and showed that the ink maintained 80 to 90 percent of its conductivity.

The authors acknowledge funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China, the National High-Tech R&D Program of China, the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University, and the Program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University.

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About American Chemical Society
The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 163,000 members, ACS is the world’s largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

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Contacts:
Wenjun Dong, Ph.D.
Center for Optoelectronics Materials and Devices
Department of Physics
Bio-x Center
Zhejiang Sci-Tech University
Hangzhou 310018
China
wenjundong@zstu.edu.cn
or
Ge Wang, Ph.D.
School of Materials Science and Engineering
University of Science and Technology Beijing
Beijing 100083
China
gewang@mater.ustb.edu.cn

General Inquiries:
Michael Bernstein
m_bernstein@acs.org
202-872-6042

Science Inquiries:
Katie Cottingham, Ph.D.
k_cottingham@acs.org
301-775-8455