ABOUT POLYTRONICS

3. POLYTRONICS

4. WHAT IS POLYTRONICS…??
 Polymer + electronics
 Influence of plastic in electronics
 Certain plastic(polymers) have conductive & light
emitting property
 providing the basis of a new technology for flat–panel
displays with excellent visibility

5. PLASTIC ELECTRONICS
 Plastics could be made to conduct through doping(adding
impurities)
 depending on their chemical structure plastics may exhibit
electrically conductive, semi-conductive or insulating properties
 Chemical composition of plastics or conjugated polymers is
changed by doping to make them conducting
 Polymers such as polythiophenes, oligothiophenes and
pentacene have conductive property
 electronic behavior of these polymers is very different from
inorganic semiconductors such as silicon or gallium arsenide

6. ELECTRICAL CONDUCTIVITY
Polymer
Electronically
Intrinsically
conductive
polymers
Ionically

7. CONJUGATED POLYMERS
 Gain conductivity
through “conjugation”
 Polymer molecules have
alternating double bond
and single bond
 Pathway for free
electron charge carriers
 Doped with oxidising or
reducing agents
 Conductivity btw conv:
polymers & metals

8. MOSTLY USED CONJUGATED POLYMERS
 They can emit light
 Conductivity can be varied
 Generate current
 Ability to store an electric
charge

9. MANUFACTURING TECHNIQUES
 Printing polymer circuits is known as Polymer
Mechatronics or Flexonics
 Developed by university of California in Berkeley
 No need of “assemble and build” technique

10. PRINTING YOUR CIRCUITS
 Polymer
mechatronics or
flexonics
 The entire product
would come out of the
printer
 Electronic circuits
embedded in the
product itself

11. STEPS…

12. FLEXIBLE ELECTRONICS
»Talk and Trash« Cell Phone

13. ELECTRONIC PAPER
 paper is made of a thin layer
(coating) of conductive synthetic
material
 coating contains capsules filled
with oil, with floating black and
white pigment parts in it.
 text and pictures are displayed by
electronic ink or e-Ink.
 use plastic substrate and
electronics to make the display
flexible.
 text or the image will remain on the
electronic paper, even when the
reader is switched off

14. USED IN : Electronic price tags, Bus/Train station timetables,
Electronic billboards…
ADVANTAGE : handy, light size ,Inexpensive ,reusable ,portable…
 electronic ink
 electronics required to
generate the pattern of
text and images
Electronic paper
Front plane
backplane

15. PLASTIC BATTERIES
 Developed by Hopkins university
 Positive and negative electrodes are
thin, foil-like plastic sheets
 Electrolyte is a polymer gel film
 Does not contain hazardous chemicals
as in Ni-Cd cells
 Can be recharged and reused a
number of times without loss of power
USED IN :military and space applications , small consumer devices

16. ELECTROACTIVE POLYMERS
 Polymers which can be to bend,
stretch, twist or contract under
the influence of electric charge
 Have the potential to function as
artificial muscles
 Implanted into the body
 Have sensor, battery &EAP
valves
 Sensor activated with chemical
change
 delivered to specific tissues at
specific doses and times.
Artificial muscles Smart pills

17. OLEDS
 sandwiching organic thin films
between two conductors.
 Emissive displays
 Wider viewing angle(upto 160°)
 Can be read even in bright
sunlight
 Preferred choice for lighter, thinner
and flexible display screens
USED IN : televisions, laptop, cellular phones, digital video cameras,
DVD players, PDAs, car stereos

18. LEDs remain functionality even
under tight bending radius

19. ADVANTAGES
 freedom in design
 cheap foil substrates
 light-weight
 compact portable products
 cost-effective assembly with reel-to-reel processing
 environment-friendly
 printing instead of lithography
 Scale :printing can be done with almost unlimited length

20. DISADVANTAGES
 Need low temperature processes
 Substrates are not flat and have many defects
 Plastics are highly permeable for water and oxygen and
offer little protection for electronic components

21. FUTURE
 Rollable or foldable thin film
computers
 Electronic newspaper which
continually updated
 Fruit and vegetables labels
 Invisible chips will one day be
integrated in paper, postage
stamps, bank notes etc with
intelligence

22. CONCLUSION
 provide a cheap method for the fabrication of simple low-cost electronic products
 Polymer materials offer a high degree of freedom and flexibility in the design of the
materials, devices and systems
 Scarcity of semiconductors and power compels the new generation to move to
polytronics.
 “THE IDEA OF POLYTRONICS IS NOT TO REPLACE SILICON TECHNOLOGY BUT TO DEVELOP
NEW APPLICATION IN CONJUNCTION WITH SILICON”