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Ever heard of using your inkjet printer to print out an electronic circuit? No, we’re not referring to just printing out the circuit design. We’re referring to printing out the electronic circuit itself. This could be very useful if you’d like to have them on a flexible surface such as plastic or probably even paper. The key to achieving this feat does not lie on the printer but rather in the type of ink used.

Apparently, the best way would be to have inks with semiconductive properties. Right now, we don’t have those on our shelves … yet. But the way things are going, it won’t be long ‘til you’ll find them alongside our regular inks. So how does this stuff work?

Get some positively charged ink to make it work

As early as 2004, researchers from Xerox were already able to develop special “inks” for printing p-type semiconductors, conductors, and dielectrics using inkjet techniques. These are the basic components to produce transistors or modern circuits. Unlike other methods that produce similar circuits at very high temperatures and very low pressures, this type can be done in ordinary room conditions.

Its applications? For starters, think RFID (radio frequency identification) tags that you see on many consumer goods. You can also imagine electronic paper, the technology used on paper-like displays of e-book readers such as the Amazon Kindle. Then of course there are the ubiquitous super thin flat panels. All these are made possible by putting circuits on flexible surfaces. The problem with the current technology is that their techniques are just so expensive. On the other hand, producing circuits using inkjet technology would translate to low production costs.

Mix with negatively charged ink to make it faster

At around January this year, researchers at Polyera and BASF Future Business GmbH were successful in producing an n-type polymer semiconductive ink. When Xerox Corp developed its own ink 5 years ago, it was only a p-type semiconductor. Meaning, it was only able to carry positive charge. So what makes an n-type any better than a p-type semiconductor for this particular print job? Not much. But when you make them work together, you can “print out” a faster/high performance electronic circuit.

Ready to print that circuit?

Hold your horses first. The technology is not yet perfect. In fact, it will probably take a little more time before it becomes commercially available for household use. But when it finally is, it would be advantageous to know where to find inks and cartridges where the standards are higher and the prices are lower.