About the project
This project will use material science and engineering concepts to develop highly conductive copper inks, printing technology to fabricate intricate circuit designs on paper substrates and creatively integrate them with electronics to fabricate flexible paper electronic (papertronic) devices for practical applications.
Printed electronics is the cornerstone of recent technological advancements creating a digitally connected world and it is therefore timely to invest efforts in search for more sustainable, abundant and low cost alternatives to silver inks that dominate the market, as well as eco-friendly and light weight substrates for more practical electronic devices. Addressing these two aspects, this PhD project aims to develop aqueous copper inks to fabricate highly conductive copper electrodes and circuits on a variety of paper substrates using a room temperature, sintering-free approach.
The project will build on our recent work in this field and will synergistically combine nanotechnology, material development, processing and device design aspects of engineering to devise a sustainable approach to fabricate a stable conductive copper ink with environmentally benign chemicals and integrate the resulting printed paper copper circuits into smart paper electronic (papertronic) devices.
The project has the potential to revolutionise how of copper inks and electronics are developed and unlock commercially viable practical solutions.
The project will have access to facilities, both experimental and characterization tools available at the University of Southampton.
The PhD student will have the chance to develop knowledge and skills in fabrication and characterisation of conductive inks and integration of printed circuits into practical devices while also having the opportunity to publish the research findings in high-impact journals and present at conferences.
