UK University Creates First Inkjet-Printed Graphene Circuit

MrSeb writes with this ExtremeTech excerpt aimed at the graphene enthusiasts out there: "You can add another crazy characteristic to graphene's ever-expanding list of 'wonder material' properties: It can now be used to create flexible, transparent thin-film transistors. ... using an inkjet printer. The discovery comes from researchers at the University of Cambridge, UK, who were trying to ameliorate the lackluster performance of existing inkjet-printed electronics. It's already possible to print standard CMOS transistors using different ferroelectric polymer inks, but the resultant circuit is so slow that it can't actually function as a computer. If graphene could replace or augment the interconnects or transistors, these circuits would be a lot faster — and that's what these Cambridge engineers have done. Furthermore, if you didn't think that was cool enough, the graphene-based ink that they've developed is transparent, too."

Comments

Pros and cons

[hamsolo474]

well i think this is a great idea, printable circuits would make it much easier for the electronics hobbiest to build electronics. perhaps with printable circuits people might begin printing their circuits to look like their schematics. On the cons side its this sort of confusing technology that delayed me and i think stopped other people all together from attempting electronics, i was always interested in electronics but whenever i would crack open a commerical device to look at the circuits and attempt to gain some form of understanding as to how it works, the circuit would be laid out in some space saving non reabable/understandable design. this makes the circuits look overly complex and thus scares away people who otherwise might try their hand at it.

Re:Pros and cons

[wierd_w]

I can see a rather clever toy being made using this technology.

Imagine for a moment, that you have a simple robot chasis like hardware platform, with a flat ribbin cable type connector that is really really wide (like the kind that attaches the keyboard inside a laptop, or the ribbon going to the optical head assy of a dvd drive, only much wider.). It is meant to accept all the electronic innards of the robot other than actuators and external ports and battery pack on a printed sheet of slightly textured plastic, that has a commercially inlaid edge connector on one side that fits the really wide flat ribbon connector, and on the other a specially notched corner, or some other orientation feature.

The sheet is meant to be cleaned, like a dry erase board, but with a special solvent. This makes the sheets reusable.

The printer loads the sheets, which could be printed on both sides if desired, and prints circuits and traces that lead to the inlaid metal edge connector pads.

The idea is as a hobby electronics toy for enthusiasts and advanced school children. A kind of "build your own robot" kit with modular servos and sensors that attach to the simplified chasis a little like legos, and with an extremely low cost roll your own logic board that you print on the special plastic sheet. Since the circuit components are all inkjetted, component cost would be minimal: just the cost of the ink.

Anything from novelty antennas to special logic could be printed on the sheets.

I could really see such a toy being a fantastic learning aid, especially in a school setting. The limiting factors would be feature size, circuit impedence, and physical realestate on the printed sheet. While probably slower than an arduino, it would offer quite a bit more customization options, especially if it came with some design software that had sample patterns for apus, memory cell circuits, and various logic gates and simple IC units.

Available at Office Depot

[The Clockwork Troll]

I hope they are using Genuine EPSON Graphene Inks.

Doesn't surprise me

[jd]

This was a matter of time, given that they could do regular transistors and graphene is much simpler. What will be interesting, however, is what people do with this. There have been all kinds of interesting attempts at novel engineering (liquid crystal memories, for example) that either never got funded to completion or ended up going nowhere.

The latter is as it should be. There is no point in research if you know the results beforehand. It is merely fraud to only do what you know will work. The former is typical bigotry against those who actually do the real work in society.

Re:Doesn't surprise me

[ultranova]

What will be interesting, however, is what people do with this.

Probably nothing. Inkjets tend to have their jets clog, which in turn leads to imperfections which render the circuit inoperative. While this can in part be helped by printing larger features, the resolution is already pretty low, and that makes the effective resolution - and thus the amount of components you can fit on a paper - even lower.

In short, in all but the most specialized applications it's better to just get a regular chip.

Re:UK University???

[dbIII]

The US also has a Cambridge and built a University there.

Cool, but effective?

[pryoplasm]

I like the idea of a transparent circuit, however when it comes to troubleshooting it or trying to find a break in it, transparent might not be the best thing...

still, interesting. I am wondering if they can add something to the graphene to make it more visible without taking away some of graphenes properties...

Re:Cool, but effective?

[reiisi]

Have you ever tried troubleshooting a microprocessor off the assembly line?

I think you're thinking in terms of replacing the circuit board etching kits for hobbiests. Sure, transparency would put a minor kink in that use, but not a show stopper.

(And I'm sure we can both think of cool things to do with the transparency.)

It would be interesting to know how much various pigments interferred with the electrical properties, of course. Home printing of circuit boards (circuit papers?) would definitely make a lot of projects easier, particularly when the active components can also be printed on, perhaps in the same pass.

Lo-res LSI.

Re:UK University???

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a franchise. Australia is due to open one soon.

target apps

[reiisi]

6809 processor on a sheet of paper.

And could we squeeze in a 6821, and a 6847? (Still lots of NTSC TVs not in the land fills. Intel deserves to die for HDCP.)

Capacitive keyboard? (Not a whole lot worse than the chiclet keyboards.)

Re:target apps

[Almost-Retired]

"63C09 processor on a sheet of paper."

There, I fixed it for you. You see the 6309 was the result of Hitachi obtaining a permission to build a 6809 that was a functional clone of the 6809, but had to call it something else other than its being a cmos 6809 chip, and were enjoined from ever saying there was a difference other than the resultant design was in cmos.

But something odd happened on the way to the foundry. When the 6809's op-codes were put into a map whose x/y was the value of the nibbles, there was quite a number of 'holes', so Hitachi filled them in with enhanced feature op-codes. Op-codes it remained for the users to discover because even when disclosed, Hitachi was prevented from even confirming their existence. Such things as several more accumulator registers (E,F, and Q which meant A,B,E,F combined for 32 bits), and where the 6809 had some mul functions that gave 16 bit answers, the 6309 had a new 16x16 multiply with a 32 bit answer, and a divide of 16 bits into 32 bits with a 16 bit answer and a 16 bit remainder in 39 clocks worst case. Loads and stores could be 32 bits wide, a slight speedup because it skiped an instruction fetch in the middle, and a switchable ability to pipe line the next instruction fetch during an otherwise idle bus cycle which made it about 10% faster because you actually had to turn it off by a write to the MD register.

The net result for the color computers OS9 operation system was, when combined with some bug fixing, nearly twice as fast at the same clock speed. FWIW, I have one in my 'coco3', running right now. We call it Nitros9 now. Community supported.

If this 'sheet of paper' can get to a 2 mhz clock speed, I can see newer developments made even easier already.
A notebook coco3 for instance. Just turn the 'page' to run a different test configuration. :)

Cheers, Gene

Re:UK University???

[MasterPatricko]

The first president (Henry Dunster), the first benefactor (John Harvard), and the first schoolmaster (Nathaniel Eaton) of Harvard were all Cambridge University alumni, as was the then ruling (and first) governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, John Winthrop.

Just wondering

[Anonymous Coward]

So, will this lead to downloadable (based on open source hardware and OS) devices? And downloadable designs for your devices as well?

Transparent

[Arancaytar]

You could now print an invisible computer onto a piece of paper?

More awesome than can be described.

Hate to be a downer, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll bet it causes cancer.

Not alumni

[Kupfernigk]

Although Cambridge has given up and now uses the American term in fundraising, they were not in fact U of C alumni (and nor am I, to declare an interest). That's because if you go to Cambridge and graduate, you remain a member of the University for life or until the Senate votes you off, though obviously with no official title and unpaid. Same with Oxford.

Technically, therefore, Harvard was founded by members of the University of Cambridge.

The old joke is that graduates of Oxford intend to run the country (which they almost invariably do) while graduates of Cambridge don't care who runs the country so long as they get to do something interesting. Given how immensely successful Harvard has been, the rule obviously applied in this case.