Principal Investigator: Lee Pooi See (Associate Dean (Faculty Recruitment & Development), College of Engineering
Professor, School of Materials Science & Engineering)
Team: Halevi Oded (PhD Student, School of Materials Science & Engineering), Zhou Xinran ( Project Officer, School of Materials Science & Engineering) Tan Wei Ming Alvin (Research Associate, School of Materials Science & Engineering)
Mentor: Alfred Chong (Founder & CEO - Nanoveu Pte Ltd)
Transparent and deformable conductive paper
Transparent conductors (TCs) have become an integral part of the technology market, integrated within smartphones and all touchscreen appliances. Furthermore, many emerging technologies, such as smart windows and transparent solar cells, require TCs to maintain their optoelectronic features. Currently, the common TC is ITO, which has several disadvantages such as toxicity, brittleness and high fabrication temperatures. As the electronic market moves towards flexible and deformable components, these limitations withhold the ITO utilization and require alternative materials that will enable device flexibility.
Our technology focuses on a scalable, low-cost fabrication process of a transparent, flexible and waterproof conductor, based on silver nanowires. The deposition process is done at relatively low temperatures, which enables the use of a variety of polymers as substrates, and the conductive grid can be incorporated on flexible and stretchable materials. This technology will provide a solution in cases which require features not available by ITO, and push forward the deformable optoelectronic market.