Traditionally solar cells and electrical circuits are made from inorganic materials, such as heavy metals, that are expensive, hurt the environment, and inflexible. However by utilizing the discovery of conducting plastics made by Alan MacDiarmid, Alan Heeger, and Hideki Shirokawa, Loo has \u201cinvented an inexpensive, non-toxic and quick process for making organic electronics and plastic circuits\u201d (<\/span>Chemical Engineer and Biologist Make List of World’s Top Young Innovators<\/span><\/a>). To create these devices she had to understand the methods used to create silicon devices and then interpret that the same technique would be incompatible (<\/span>Chemical Engineer and Biologist Make List of World’s Top Young Innovators<\/span><\/a>). The techniques used for silicon devices include toxic chemicals that harm the organic material used: silicon processes take up a large amount of time and are made with expensive equipment (<\/span>Chemical Engineer and Biologist Make List of World’s Top Young Innovators<\/span><\/a>). To create organic devices Lynn had to invent a new technique which became nanotransfer printing. This technique does not use solvents but rather a method similar to stamping (<\/span>Chemical Engineer and Biologist Make List of World’s Top Young Innovators<\/span><\/a>). These \u201cstamps\u201d are created with grooves on a flexible, viscous, and elastic surface that then print the desired circuit design (<\/span>Chemical Engineer and Biologist Make List of World’s Top Young Innovators<\/span><\/a>). Then the circuit parts can be placed onto the flexible plastics without the need of chemical etching (<\/span>Chemical Engineer and Biologist Make List of World’s Top Young Innovators<\/span><\/a>). Advantages unique to this technique include flexibility, large surface areas, cheap memory, and expendable\/wearable electronics (<\/span>Chemical Engineer and Biologist Make List of World’s Top Young Innovators<\/span><\/a>). These organic electronics can be easily incorporated into therapeutics and diagnostic medicine while taking as little as 30 seconds to produce (<\/span>Chemical Engineer and Biologist Make List of World’s Top Young Innovators<\/span><\/a>).<\/span><\/p>\n Thin-film Plastic Electronic Device \u00a9 Phys.org 2010<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n Lynn\u2019s invention of nanotransfer printing could only be made with the convenience of many modern inventions, including the discovery of organic conductors made in 2000 which provided a base for her electronic device (The Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 2000: Conductive Polymers<\/a>). Then a process called spin-coating, which is a technique of applying a compound to a surface and spinning it in order to create a thin film on the base material is used to prepare the plastic surface for gold coating (Video: ‘Plastic Electronics’<\/a>).\u00a0 Next a gold evaporator is used to evaporate gold that deposits onto the base material. Lynn developed an alternative process of evaporating gold electrodes on to a silicon rubber stamp, and then laminate the stamp onto the polymer film to make the electronic devices (Video: ‘Plastic Electronics’<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Technology To understand the research behind organic thin-film devices plastic conductors needs to be discussed. Lynn\u2019s invention was a technique to make plastic conductors into a thin-film device. Organic compounds such as polymers contain bonds that can be \u201cdoped\u201d with … Continue reading ![\"WGSS](\"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/benjaminappleby\/files\/2016\/05\/WGSS-320-Assign5-TechnologyPhoto1-158x300.png\")
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