Additive Manufacturing Towards Electronically-active Surfaces | Spring Doctoral Dissertation Seminar

MTL Seminar Series
to
Speaker
Mayuran Saravanapavanantham
Location
Grier A (34-401A)
Open to
MIT Community

Abstract: Ubiquitous and imperceptible integration of optoelectronics into the world around us would allow for novel modes of energy harvesting, communications, sensing, information display, and computing. To date, owing to the availability of foundries and scalable processing modalities, this has been achieved via fabrication of discrete elements that are then deterministically positioned throughout the world via pick-and-place assembly. Alternatively, availability of large-area, ultra-thin, and continuous elements would enable seamless integration of electronics onto surfaces around us much like a second skin.

Thin-film electronics, often fabricated with sub-micron device-functional layer thicknesses, present an avenue toward such mechanically imperceptible, large-area, and continuous integration of electronics onto any surface of choice—a paradigm that we refer to as "active surfaces".

In this talk, we will discuss our work on developing transferable ultra-thin organic photovoltaics, decoupling their manufacturing from the final integration thereby allowing the electrification of any surface of interest. In particular, we will present on the scalable manufacturing methods to fabricate fully-printed, ultra-thin photovoltaic modules and their integration onto lightweight and high strength composite fabrics. We will discuss the development of equivalently ultra-thin encapsulation films, and highlight further advances necessary to translate this into a commercially viable technology.

headshot of mayuran

Bio: Mayuran Saravanapavanantham holds a B.A.Sc. in Nanotechnology Engineering from the University of Waterloo, an S.M. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT. His Ph.D. research in Professor Vladimir Bulović’s group focused on large-area printed ultra-thin organic photovoltaics and manufacturing approaches to rapidly integrate them into the world around us.