Staff at Liverpool University's Centre for Materials and Sciences have embarked on a project to prove a new manufacturing process, which could benefit manufactures of plastic electronics.
The researchers will collaborate with commercial partners from materials maker SAFC Hitech on the project which has been allocated just over £200,000 (€250,000) in funds from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). It is part of a wider tranche of funding to support academics in feasibility studies of new light-based manufacturing techniques. Announced in January, this will see£3.6million given to 14 teams based around various universities in the UK.
The project will see the Liverpool team install a UV LED source into its existing atomic layer deposition (ALD) production facility. The wavelength of the UV source will be precisely calibrated so as to photochemically decompose precursor chemicals that are used to form the thin film material. If successful, the UV method would offer advantages over existing ALD techniques, which are already in use flexible electronics production, that rely on heat to form the thin film.
Once demonstrated a second phase of the 18-month project will involve refining the process to allow selective photo-exposure and 'writing' on the forming film. The proposal states that it will then have applications not just in plastic electronics production, but roll-to-roll barriers layers, organic and inorganic photovoltaics and biomedical devices too.
The Technology Strategy Board is running a separate £4.6 million programme to part-fund research projects, including those aimed at enabling commercial production of plastic electronics.
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