With the equipment of AFS Entwicklungs + Vertriebs GmbH, NORCOP demonstrates the significance of the surface chemistry of polymer substrates used in conductive ink screen printing, and how its modification by MOLECULAR COATING™ achieves low resistivity, defect-free, reliable, and compact flexible electrical circuits. "MOLECULAR COATING™ is a plasma-induced surface deposition technology allowing the deposition of transparent thin coatings on the surface of various 2D plastic, paper, and textile substrates. It performs exceptionally well in screen printing of conductive inks, while preliminary results using inkjet printing have been very promising. When the right ink-substrate pair has been identified and used, the main characteristics of these thin layers are surface roughness and surface chemistry control, which lead to perfect wetting (zero pinholes) and adhesion. These characteristics afford the printer the following benefits:" Absence of PINHOLES leads to increased conductivity in electrical circuits: often more than two times higher when compared to those printed on standard commercial PET. Surface Roughness Control, achieved by varying the thickness of the deposited film, impacts the adhesion of the ink due to modification of the ink-substrate interlocking mechanisms (@Van Der Waals interactions) Surface Chemistry Control, achieved by the introduction of carefully selected chemical functions on the surface of the substrate, ensures high energy covalent bonding between...

Kontakt.io Inc., the industry leader in Bluetooth ® Low Energy (BLE) indoor IoT solutions launched the world's smallest BLE beacon, and the first disposable wearable Nano Tag - to solve for worker safety, patient and visitor experience use cases for the healthcare, hospitality and events industries. "Addressing size and unit cost limitations of older generation RFID tags, Kontakt.io's BLE tag technology makes it possible for end-users to deploy truly disposable beacons in a wearable form factor that makes a host of new use cases possible, including those for event delegates, sports fans, building visitors or healthcare patient localization and the applications that take advantage of such real-time data. Kontakt.io's open API-First delivery architecture, coupled with BLE's promise for an open wireless standard that is vendor agnostic, stands to rapidly increase adoption of advanced use cases such as:"
In healthcare, Nano Tag is used by staff to prevent patient wandering and elopement, to monitor patient procedure wait times, and better orchestrate emergency department and operating suites workflows; For trade shows and in large music and sports events, Nano Tag wristbands are used for crowd safety, emergency management and to enable new experience use cases such as location-aware food services, find my friend and other indoor location experiences; In smart buildings, wearable lanyards and wrist Nano Tags make it possible to monitor visitor movements inside buildin...

Phoseon Technology has announced a new FireJet and FireEdge NIR Explorer. Near-InfraRed lamps that are aimed at curable adhesives, 3D printing, and pinning on low migration applications. Phoseon’s latest LED lamp, the FireEdge Explorer, uses NIR for curing Phoseon has built its entire business on developing LED lamps though up to now the company has concentrated on ultraviolet lamps. Simon Reissmann, a technical marketing engineer for Phoseon, says that the company constantly extends its LED wavelength portfolio so it’s a natural step to implement LEDs that emit in the Near InfraRed range. The NIR spectrum starts at around 800nm, where the visible light spectrum leaves off. Reissmann says these lamps can be used for new NIR-curable adhesives, adding: “Further, this technology is showing potential in pinning and improving print quality on water-based and hybrid inks, used for low migration, in inkjet printing before the final curing stage.” These LED systems are not yet powerful enough to fully cure and dry water-based prints in the way that, for example, an Adphos NIR system can but Reissman says that the NIR LED lamps have been shown to help print quality through pinning. He adds: “Another area of interest is 3D printing and keeping printed models and substrates contactless at the desired temperature.” Reissman continues: “NIR LED will not compete against UV LED but rather complement it for materials and applications that have a different absorption spectrum. The ...

"The US battery R&D company Ionobell, awards FOM Technologies a contract for Slot Die coating equipment. The sale will be via our strategic partner in US M. Braun Inc." "FOM is happy to announce the sale of our flagship machine to the California-based company Ionobell.
Ionobell is a battery R&D company with expertise in battery material and cell development. Ionobell is specialized in silicon battery manufacturing for the Automotive industry." CEO Michael Stadi states: “The sale underlines and supports the effort, we at FOM has put into designing products for the booming EV industry. As with all our customers, we’ll make sure that the science team of Ionobell, will get all our support and insight to our technology to create a long-term relationship.” Source: https://www.fomtechnologies.com/news/us-battery-rd-company-awards-fom-new-contract...

On Wearable Medical Sensors, E-Textiles and Printed Electronics TechBlick is delighted to announce a Free-To-Attend exhibition and selected end-user presentations on 14 October 2021 between 16:30 to 19:30 CEST in their popular networking lounge. This is a Free-To-Attend session, part of the larger member-only event featuring world-class speakers on Wearable Medical Sensors, Printed Electronics, and E-Textiles. To see the full agenda click here. The Free-To-Attend session includes the following global end-user speakers: Ypsomed: Printed/Flexible Electronics for Drug Delivery Devices - Drivers & Tradeoffs Ravensburger: Printed Electronics in the Board Game Industry Metronic: Tech Innovations in Insulin Delivery Siemens Healthcare: Perovskites: The Emergence of a New Era for High-Resolving and Ultra-Sensitive Flat Panel X-Ray Detectors GE Healthcare: Disposable, Adjustable Clinical Grade Vital Sign Monitoring Systems Wiliot: How to Scale the IoT to Trillions – Sensing as a Service with Sticker Sized Computers Robert Sauvé Research Institute for Occupational Health and Safety: Smart Protective Equipment. In addition to these presentations there is also a major exhibition for you to enjoy. Giving you the opportunity to meet colleagues and potential new customers. This is an extremely interactive event, giving the buzz and feel of an in-person event. To see how it works, please click on the link here To register for this ‘must attend’ event click here Places are limited and d...

Toppan printing develops the world’s first flexible TFT to withstand million bending cycles to a one-millimeter radius of curvature. "Flexible electronics are seen in foldable smartphones and their application is anticipated for wearable sensors, medical devices, smart packaging, and more. Organic TFTs are lightweight and flexible, but disadvantages include low carrier mobility, reliability, and durability. Inorganic TFTs provide high carrier mobility and have an established mass production process, but flexibility needs improvement. There is consequently the demand for new TFTs combining outstanding carrier mobility, flexibility, and durability." "Toppan, a global leader in communication, security, packaging, décor materials, and electronics solutions, has developed a flexible thin-film transistor (TFT) with an unprecedented combination of flexibility, durability, and carrier mobility. The new TFT withstands a million bending cycles to a 1 mm radius of curvature and demonstrates advantages for practical application, such as an on/off current ratio of at least 10^7 with carrier mobility of 10cm^2/Vs or more." "Leveraging unique technologies and a new structure, Toppan has created the world’s first TFT with the flexibility to be wound around a mechanical pencil lead, the durability of a flexible printed circuit board, and carrier mobility exceeding 10 times that of amorphous silicon TFTs. Flex testing shows no variation in carrier mobility and other properties before an...

The Sydney-based solar technology start-up "SunDrive Solar" has developed a commercial-size silver-free silicon PV cell that elevated the new world record for the efficiency at which its solar cells convert sunlight to electricity to 25.54%. "Silver is a core component in today’s solar panels. It is estimated solar panel manufacturing accounts for about 20% of the world’s annual consumption of the precious metal, with the volume expected to rise steeply as the next generation of high-efficiency cells currently being developed require up to three times more silver than their antecedents. Copper doesn’t have the same highly conductive properties as silver and does not adhere well to the surface of the solar cell but Allen, who along with former flatmate David Hu founded SunDrive in 2015, has found a solution. And a much more affordable one." "The result is a major shake-up for the industry with China-based solar cell manufacturers topping the efficiency records in recent years. Manufacturing giant Longi Solar held the previous top mark for a commercial-size monocrystalline hetero-junction (HJT) solar cell, achieving 25.26% during testing at ISFH earlier this year. While SunDrive celebrated the world record, the company’s technology – which replaces the expensive silver used in conventional solar cells with the cheaper and more abundant copper – could have greater ramifications, potentially lowering the manufacturing cost of solar PV panels." "In terms of our timeline, we're...

"Xiaomi has developed a monochrome microLED screen for smart glasses to display the real-time translation of text and audio. An AI engine can translate text from pictures taken by a 5Mpxel camera and display them in real-time on the glasses." Xiaomi says it went with a monochrome MicroLED system because of its “higher pixel density and longer lifespan while having a simpler structure” when compared to OLED. According to Xiaomi, MicroLED “allows for a more compact display, as well as easier screen integration.” "MicroLED is a self-emissive display technology that is widely viewed as the natural successor to OLED. However, it remains prohibitively expensive and is yet to be deployed in more than a handful of commercial products." "The Xiaomi's smart glasses design has 497 components and weighs 51g. The monochrome display chip in the Xiaomi smart glasses measures 2.4mm x 2.02mm with 4μm individual pixels to fit within the frame of the glasses. To allow sufficient light to pass through complicated optical structures before reaching the eye even in harsh direct sunlight, the developers used a monochrome display with a peak brightness of 2 million nits." "By adopting optical waveguide technology which refracts lights at 180°, the MicroLED display accurately transmits light beams to the human eye through the microscopic grating structure of the optical waveguide lens. The grating structure etched onto the inner surface of the lens allows light to be refracted into the eye with ...