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Special Issue "Printed Functional Thin Films for Electronic, Optoelectronic and Sensing Applications"

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A special issue of Coatings (ISSN 2079-6412). This special issue belongs to the section "Thin Films".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2023 | Viewed by 6660

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Fausta Loffredo

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Guest Editor

Laboratory Nanomaterials and Devices, ENEA Centro Ricerche Portici, P.le Enrico Fermi, 80055 Portici NA, Italy
Interests: inkjet printing of functional materials; electronic and optical devices; chemicophysical characterization of materials

Dr. Fulvia Villani

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Guest Editor

Laboratory Nanomaterials and devices, ENEA Centro Ricerche Portici, P.le Enrico Fermi, 80055 Portici NA, Italy
Interests: inkjet printing of functional materials; electronic and optical devices; materials’ characterization

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Recently, printing techniques are extensively employed to deposit and pattern controlled amounts of liquid-phase functional materials. They represent an important alternative to traditional manufacturing in order to produce functional films with suitable geometry, due to the ease of fabrication, design flexibility, compatibility with different type of functional materials and substrates. These factors make printing technologies attractive for academic and industrial research teams working in different fields, including microelectronics manufacturing, biomedical applications, and photonics manufacturing. Among them, digital technologies as inkjet printing take up a special place thanks to further advantages in terms of versatility of patterning geometry, reduced process steps and material waste, wide versatility of employable substrates (rigid/flexible).

This Special Issue offers the opportunity to present novel progress in the field of printing of thin functional films providing insights into the chemico-physical, morphological, and structural properties of printed products and also advances in geometries, architectures, and processes. The topics of particular interest include but are not limited to printed functional thin films for different applications in sensing, electronics, and optical fields.

Dr. Fausta Loffredo
Dr. Fulvia Villani
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Coatings is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

Ink-jet printing
Thin film
Functional inks
Electronic devices
Functionalizing of layer
Reactive inkjet printing
Solution-based processing
2D patterns

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

Open AccessArticle

Inkjet Printing of High Aspect Ratio Silver Lines via Laser-Induced Selective Surface Wetting Technique

and

Coatings 2023, 13(4), 683; https://doi.org/10.3390/coatings13040683 - 27 Mar 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 547

Abstract

The field of printed electronics for highly integrated circuits and energy devices demands very fine and highly conductive electric interconnections. In this study, conductive lines having a high cross-sectional aspect ratio were printed via the inkjet printing of Ag nanoparticle inks assisted by a laser-induced selective surface wetting technique: a hydrophobic layer of self-assembled monolayer-treated ZnO nanorods was coated on a glass substrate and selectively ablated by a laser to form micro-channels for the inkjet, whose surface energy changed from 36.3 mJ/m² to 51.5 mJ/m² before and after the laser irradiation. With the varying width of the laser-ablated channels and pitch of jetted ink drops, the 3D shapes of the printed silver lines were measured to investigate their effects on the widths, heights, and uniformities of the printed patterns. The results showed that the present technique realized a uniform line of 35 μm width and 0.46 μm average thickness, having an aspect ratio of 0.013, which is 7.6 times higher than that printed on bare glass. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Printed Functional Thin Films for Electronic, Optoelectronic and Sensing Applications)

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Open AccessArticle

Slot-Die-Coated Active Layer for Printed Flexible Back-Contact Perovskite Solar Cells

Hryhorii P. Parkhomenko

Mayuribala Mangrulkar

and

Askhat N. Jumabekov

Coatings 2023, 13(3), 550; https://doi.org/10.3390/coatings13030550 - 03 Mar 2023

Viewed by 694

Abstract

Perovskites have already shown potential as active layers in photovoltaic applications. Furthermore, a low-cost and simple solution processing technology allows perovskites to be used in flexible and printed electronics. Perovskite solar cells (PSC) with a back-contact (BC) structure, in which the electrode system is based on a quasi-interdigitated back-contact (QIBC) design, promise to increase the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of devices beyond those that can be obtained using PSCs with a traditional sandwich structure. While the spin-coating technique is used to deposit the perovskite layer of lab-scale BC PSCs, the application of large-area printing techniques to deposit the perovskite layer of such devices is yet to be explored. Therefore, this work demonstrates an application of the slot-die coating technique to print the perovskite active layer of BC PSCs with QIBC electrodes on flexible polymer substrates. The morphology of the obtained perovskite films on QIBC electrodes are investigated and the primary photoelectric parameters of the resulting BC PSCs are measured. The charge carrier recombination processes in the fabricated BC PSCs are investigated and the dominant mechanism for carrier loss in the devices is determined. The findings of the work give an insight into the properties of the slot-die-coated perovskite active layer of BC PSCs and points to exciting new research opportunities in this direction. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Printed Functional Thin Films for Electronic, Optoelectronic and Sensing Applications)

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Open AccessFeature PaperEditor’s ChoiceArticle

Gravure Printing for PVDF Thin-Film Pyroelectric Device Manufacture

and

Coatings 2022, 12(7), 1020; https://doi.org/10.3390/coatings12071020 - 19 Jul 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1641

Abstract

Pyroelectric energy harvesting is one of the more recent and promising solid-state approaches for directly converting time-dependent temperature fluctuations into electric energy. Conventional printing technologies can offer many advantages for the production of pyroelectric thin-film-based devices, such as low cost, low temperature, the use of flexible substrates and shaping at the same time as deposition. Nevertheless, some issues related to low printed thickness and film-forming microstructure control need to be addressed. In this exploratory study, the possibility of exploiting the highly attractive gravure printing process for the potential industrial manufacture of flexible polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) thin-film pyroelectric devices was investigated. By the use of corona pre-treatment of the printing substrate and low-temperature polar solvent evaporation, multilayer gravure-printed PVDF pyroelectric devices were successfully manufactured for the first time, achieving a maximum generated current of 0.1 nA at 2.5 K/s from a device with an active area of 1 cm². Considering the very low thermal inertia and performance scaling by the area expected for pyroelectric thin-film-based devices, combined with the upscaling potential of roll-to-roll gravure printing, our results provide new opportunities for on-demand, low-cost pyroelectric device manufacture and their integration in hybrid harvesters. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Printed Functional Thin Films for Electronic, Optoelectronic and Sensing Applications)

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Open AccessArticle

Bubble-Patterned Films by Inkjet Printing and Gas Foaming

Fausta Loffredo

Fulvia Villani

David Choy Buentello

Grissel Trujillo-de Santiago

Mario Moisés Alvarez

Riccardo Miscioscia

and

Ernesto Di Maio

Coatings 2022, 12(6), 806; https://doi.org/10.3390/coatings12060806 - 09 Jun 2022

Viewed by 1303

Abstract

The micropatterning of thin films represents a challenging task, even for additive manufacturing techniques. In this work, we introduce the use of inkjet-printing technology coupled with a gas-foaming process, to produce patterned porosities on polymeric thin films, to develop a bubble-writing method. Inkjet printing of an aqueous solution of poly (vinyl alcohol) (PVA), a well-known gas-barrier polymer, allows the selective coating of a thin poly (lactic acid) (PLA) film, which is, successively, exposed to a gas-foaming process. The foaming of the thin PLA film is effective, only when PVA is printed on top, since the PVA barrier hinders the premature loss of the gas, thus allowing the formation of cavities (bubbles) in the covered areas; then, removing the PVA coating by water washing forms a bubble pattern. As a proof of concept, the surface-morphology features of the patterned porous PLA films have been proven effective at driving endothelial cell growth. A new technological platform is, hence, introduced in the field of tissue engineering and, in general, in fields involving thin films, where a patterned porous structure may add value. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Printed Functional Thin Films for Electronic, Optoelectronic and Sensing Applications)

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Open AccessArticle

Fabrication and Performance Analysis of 3D Inkjet Flexible Printed Touch Sensor Based on AgNP Electrode for Infotainment Display

Srinivasan Palanisamy

Muthuramalingam Thangaraj

Khaja Moiduddin

and

Abdulrahman M. Al-Ahmari

Coatings 2022, 12(3), 416; https://doi.org/10.3390/coatings12030416 - 21 Mar 2022

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1566

Abstract

It is possible to employ printed capacitive sensors in car bezel applications because of its lower cost and higher detecting capabilities. In this paper, a flexible sensor for automotive entertainment applications has been developed using an electrode flexible sensor with an interdigitated pattern printed on it using screen printing and 3D printing fabrication processes. Design concerns such as electrode overlap, electrode gap and width on capacitance changes, and production costs were studied. In addition, a new generation of flexible printed sensors has been developed that can outperform conventional human–machine interface (HMI) sensors. The capacitance of the design pattern may be optimized by using a 15mm overlap and 0.5mm electrode line width. Due to the precision of interpolation, overlap has a larger effect on sensor performance than it would have without it. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Printed Functional Thin Films for Electronic, Optoelectronic and Sensing Applications)

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