Polymer Optoelectronics
Increasingly researchers have been turning to organic materials, especially polymers, as the basis for novel light emitting diodes (LEDs), photovoltaic diodes and circuits. Recently new manufacturing methods have opened up the prospect of printing fully-functional all-organic transistors. The combination of advances in the understanding of interfaces between polymers and other materials with these advanced processes has led to an explosion of commercial activity in polymer optoelectronics.
Professor Sir Richard Friend of the University of Cambridge has made a series of breakthroughs in the understanding and construction of polymer optoelectronic materials and devices.
"Our major goal has been to get molecular materials to the point where they make good semiconductor devices," Professor Friend tells us, "to do this we’ve had to develop a much more detailed understanding of the interfaces between materials and the behaviour of electrons within these materials: It's not enough to just know they work, we've needed to find out why.
Building new devices has gone hand-in-hand with learning more about the science behind them - this has included improving the basic descriptions of how electrons interact with the 'holes' in materials to cause such phenomena as luminescence.
His group has published a series of influential papers on everything from lasing from polymers to inkjet printing of polymer circuits. Professor Friend says he is most proud of their recent work published in Nature (March 2005): "It concerns a long-standing problem about an artefact that causes electrons to get badly trapped if silicon dioxide is used as the insulator layer, it's important to understand this if we want to build better transistors."
EPSRC support for novel materials development (building on joint work with Professor Andrew Holmes), measurement science, optics and spectroscopy gave his group a firm foundation. Surprisingly, as their subsequent work led to two highly successful spinout firms - Cambridge Display Technology Ltd and Plastic Logic - their initial goal was not commercialisation. "Because of the research we wanted to do we needed to look for commercial funding," comments Professor Friend, "yet interestingly groups like ours that have not aligned themselves with industry have dropped away." However, his group remains focused on pushing scientific boundaries: "we want to learn how to use biology's methods to assemble complex organic structures in ambient conditions."
www.epsrc.ac.uk/ResearchHi...tronics.htm
Increasingly researchers have been turning to organic materials, especially polymers, as the basis for novel light emitting diodes (LEDs), photovoltaic diodes and circuits. Recently new manufacturing methods have opened up the prospect of printing fully-functional all-organic transistors. The combination of advances in the understanding of interfaces between polymers and other materials with these advanced processes has led to an explosion of commercial activity in polymer optoelectronics.
Professor Sir Richard Friend of the University of Cambridge has made a series of breakthroughs in the understanding and construction of polymer optoelectronic materials and devices.
"Our major goal has been to get molecular materials to the point where they make good semiconductor devices," Professor Friend tells us, "to do this we’ve had to develop a much more detailed understanding of the interfaces between materials and the behaviour of electrons within these materials: It's not enough to just know they work, we've needed to find out why.
Building new devices has gone hand-in-hand with learning more about the science behind them - this has included improving the basic descriptions of how electrons interact with the 'holes' in materials to cause such phenomena as luminescence.
His group has published a series of influential papers on everything from lasing from polymers to inkjet printing of polymer circuits. Professor Friend says he is most proud of their recent work published in Nature (March 2005): "It concerns a long-standing problem about an artefact that causes electrons to get badly trapped if silicon dioxide is used as the insulator layer, it's important to understand this if we want to build better transistors."
EPSRC support for novel materials development (building on joint work with Professor Andrew Holmes), measurement science, optics and spectroscopy gave his group a firm foundation. Surprisingly, as their subsequent work led to two highly successful spinout firms - Cambridge Display Technology Ltd and Plastic Logic - their initial goal was not commercialisation. "Because of the research we wanted to do we needed to look for commercial funding," comments Professor Friend, "yet interestingly groups like ours that have not aligned themselves with industry have dropped away." However, his group remains focused on pushing scientific boundaries: "we want to learn how to use biology's methods to assemble complex organic structures in ambient conditions."
www.epsrc.ac.uk/ResearchHi...tronics.htm
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Re: Polymer Optoelectronics
Sat, December 29, 2007 - 6:00 AMNews Release
09 July 2002
Light-emitting polymers land CDT the engineering "Oscar"
Five engineers from one of the UK's most exciting new companies - Cambridge Display Technology - have won the nation's biggest engineering prize, the £50,000 Royal Academy of Engineering MacRobert Award, for their ground-breaking light-emitting polymer technology. The Academy will announce the CDT team as this year's winners at its AGM in London on 8 July. Dr David Fyfe, Professor Richard Friend, Dr Jeremy Burroughes, Dr Karl Heeks and Dr Carl Towns will receive the prize and the MacRobert gold medal from HRH Prince Philip at Buckingham Palace on 30 October.
Light-emitting polymers are the way to a true flat-screen TV or computer display, giving a picture as good as the cathode ray tubes in conventional televisions without all the bulk and complexity. Displays can be created on one sheet of glass or, ultimately, plastic so they could be rolled up. CDT's vision of the future of colour imaging has captured imaginations worldwide, and the company has licensed its technology to display manufacturers Delta Electronics, DuPont Displays, MicroEmissive Displays, Osram, Philips and Seiko Epson. The first consumer products are already in development and the first colour mobile phone screen, made possible through CDT technology, should be with us next year.
"The MacRobert Award is the most prestigious engineering award in the UK. We at CDT are honoured to receive this award which recognises not only the skills and dedication of our scientists and engineers over the past ten years but the tremendous support the company has received, and continues to receive, from the venture capitalists and private investors who have made it possible," says CDT's CEO David Fyfe. "It recognises the success of CDT on many fronts from core research to the development of industrial scale manufacturing processes through the investment we have made in the plant at Godmanchester. Most important, it recognises CDT's successful commercialisation strategy."
Professor Richard Friend (CDT's co-founder and Chief Scientist) and Dr Jeremy Burroughes (Chief Technology Officer) and colleagues at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge discovered in 1989 that they could make polymers that emitted intense light under an electric current - and that changing the polymer compositions produced different colours of light. Realising that this breakthrough opened the way to high-quality displays, the researchers formed Cambridge Display Technology Ltd in 1992 to exploit the discovery - it was the university's first spin-out company. Ten years on, CDT now employs 110 people in and around Cambridge and has recently invested £25 million in a technology development pilot plant at Godmanchester.
"CDT leads the world in its development of light-emitting polymer technology," says Sir John Cullen FREng, Chairman of the MacRobert Award judging panel. "The company has pioneered a potentially disruptive technology that could replace both the cathode ray tube and liquid crystal displays. Their strategy of licensing and joint development has also ensured that the UK economy benefits from the original work at Cambridge University."
ends
Notes for editors
1. Britain's biggest engineering prize, the Royal Academy of Engineering MacRobert Award, is worth £50,000 and the MacRobert gold medal to the ultimate winner.
CDT was one of four finalists for this year's MacRobert Award. The others three were: BP Chemicals for Innovene, a new high-productivity polyethylene technology; Mott MacDonald for tunnel jacking on the Boston Central Artery, USA; and Surface Technology Systems plc for the advanced silicon etch process.
2. Cambridge Display Technology (CDT) is a privately held company leading the research, development and commercialisation of polymer technology for flat panel displays, lighting, and photovoltaics. CDT's light emitting polymer (LEP) technology is targeted for use in a wide range of electronic display products used for information management, communications and entertainment. Features include reduced power consumption, size, thickness and weight, very wide viewing angle, superior video imaging performance and the potential to produce displays on plastic substrates. To date, licenses have been granted to Delta Optoelectronics, DuPont Displays, MicroEmissive Displays, OSRAM, Philips, and Seiko-Epson.
CDT is promoting LEP technology development and speeding its commercialization through a global business strategy including co-developments with leading companies in a wide range of display and related technology areas. Founded in 1992, the company is headquartered in Cambridge, U.K. and has a LEP manufacturing development centre in Godmanchester, U.K. More information about CDT is available at: www.cdtltd.co.uk
3. The Royal Academy of Engineering honours the UK's most distinguished engineers and aims to take advantage of the enormous wealth of engineering knowledge and experience that its one thousand Fellows possess. It exists to pursue, encourage and maintain excellence in the whole field of engineering to promote the advancement of the science, art and practice of engineering for the benefit of the public.
