Innovation Festival: Additive, Printed, Sustainable Electronics, MicroLEDs and AR/VR Displays, Perovskites

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Industrializing Piezoelectric Films, Printed Sensors & Functional Heating Elements

The growth of printed electronics is driving demand for thin, flexible, and scalable functional components, yet many innovations remain limited by industrialization challenges. This presentation introduces Alqio’s approach to bridging material innovation and manufacturing, leveraging precision formulation, coating, and printing processes.
Focusing on P(VDF‑TrFE) piezoelectric films, printed sensors (pressure, temperature, force), and heating elements, we show how controlled processing ensures stable performance and reliable signals at scale.
Through co‑development and industrial expertise, Alqio enables the transition from concept to high‑volume production, unlocking multifunctional and integrable solutions for next‑generation smart surfaces.

Blackleaf has developed industrially scalable, water-based graphene conductive inks designed for sustainable printed electronics manufacturing. Based on high-quality few-layer graphene produced at industrial scale, these formulations eliminate hazardous solvents while delivering conductive and thermally active coatings compatible with conventional printing processes.

This presentation will discuss the formulation strategy, rheological optimization, and printing performance of graphene inks tailored for screen printing and other scalable deposition technologies. Particular emphasis will be placed on the fabrication of printed heating elements combining mechanical flexibility, homogeneous temperature distribution, and compatibility with polymer films, composites, and other lightweight substrates.

Beyond the environmental benefits of water-based processing, graphene offers a unique combination of conductivity, thermal stability, flexibility, and material availability, creating new opportunities for cost-effective functional devices. Case studies will illustrate the development of printed heaters for applications including smart surfaces, transportation, consumer electronics, industrial thermal management, and wearable systems.

Attendees will gain practical insights into the challenges of transitioning graphene inks from laboratory formulations to industrial products, including dispersion stability, printability, device performance, and scale-up considerations. The presentation will highlight how sustainable graphene technologies can accelerate the deployment of next-generation printed electronics and energy-efficient heating solutions.

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The miniaturization and complexity of modern microelectronics and advanced packaging present significant manufacturing challenges, often requiring the use of specialized low-viscosity inks and expensive plating processes. To address these limitations, we introduce Pattern Transfer Printing (PTP™), a novel laser-based, non-contact technology capable of microscale printing with high-viscosity pastes.
This technology enables the use of standard metal pastes, such as silver, copper, and solder, to produce high-resolution conductive patterns and electrodes. PTP™ has been successfully implemented in the photovoltaic (PV) industry for high-throughput, mass production, achieving fine-line fingers as narrow as 10 μm for both TOPCon and HJT cell technologies.
Currently we are working to adapt the PTP™ technology to the requirements and challenges of the semiconductors and microelectronic industry such as interconnect bumps printing down to 20 μm for advanced packaging applications, fine grid printing for microelectronic, next generation display and thick-film applications, and more. The unique capabilities of PTP™—combining high-resolution patterning, material versatility, and high aspect ratios—make it a key enabling technology for the next generation of semiconductor and microelectronic manufacturing.

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Metal halide perovskites are the solution processed semiconductors which over the past several years have reported breakthroughs in the efficiency of optoelectronic devices. They also provide a significant added value being used in tandem devices combined with traditional silicon. Recently, perovskite-silicon tandem solar cells have demonstrated efficiency of over 34.5%, however such outstanding efficiencies are often demonstrated only for small area devices.
One of the central bottlenecks in upscaling perovskite-based devices manufacturing is how to combine continuous, pre-metered coating with the handling precision required for rigid substrates of heterogeneous size, thickness and edge geometry.
In PEPPERONI project, FOM Technologies proposed and developed a production scale tool for roll-to-plate (R2P) slot-die coating of wafers and other rigid substrates. The operation sequence is continuous: (i) the wafers are sealed to an adhesive carrier, (ii) the wafer train on the transporting foil is moved below the slot-die head and gets coated to the target wet thickness, (iii) the coated film is quenched/dried, (iv) the adhesive is deactivated by an external stimulus and (v), at a peeling station, the wafers detach in a controlled way, without imposing lateral shear across the wet film and proceed to the downstream unit operation.
Tests using standard off-the-shelf silicon wafers showed that they can be successfully fed into the R2P system, coated and released from the transporting foil at the end. The built-in software enables adjustment of all the necessary functional parameters supporting easy machine operation.

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This talk explains the underlying impedance principles and material-level innovation essential for impedance force sensing. Advanced Polymer Nanocomposite (PNC) materials engineered specifically for Force Sensing Impedance (FSI) technology uniquely combine piezo-resistive and piezo-capacitive properties to create a fundamentally new generation of force sensors.

The PNC material is ultra-thin (0.4 mm) and highly flexible, offering predictable electromechanical response under deformation for impedance-based force measurement. A single 20mm round PNC force sensor exemplifies sensitivity starting at just 1 gram, a wide dynamic range up to 44 lbs (with overload capability to 0.68 tons), outstanding durability (20 million cycles at full load), and robust temperature stability.

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Metal oxide materials such as ZnO, SnO₂, NiO, and ITO play critical roles in modern electronic devices, including solar cells, sensors, displays, electrochromic windows, and flexible electronics. However, conventional deposition methods often require vacuum processing, high temperatures, complex equipment, and significant manufacturing costs, creating barriers to large-scale production.

This presentation will explore how printable metal oxide nano inks can address these challenges by enabling low-temperature, solution-based fabrication while simultaneously improving device performance. Advances in nanoparticle synthesis, surface engineering, and ink formulation have made it possible to produce highly stable nano inks with excellent optical, electrical, and rheological properties that are compatible with scalable manufacturing techniques such as slot-die coating, inkjet printing, screen printing, and roll-to-roll processing.

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Perovskite photovoltaics are approaching commercialization, with recent module milestones and early market activity signaling a transition from laboratory demonstration to manufacturable product. This shift carries a consequence the field is only beginning to confront: the value proposition that guided perovskite development — performance first, durability second, with manufacturability and cost largely deferred — was well suited to the demonstration phase, but is increasingly mismatched to a commercial market defined by intense pricing pressure. This talk argues that as the technology matures, the priorities must invert toward manufacturing-friendly, lower-cost approaches, and examines what that means quantitatively. After briefly situating where perovskite PV stands today, we turn to the economics: the pricing dynamics shaping the broader PV market, current cost estimates for single-junction and tandem perovskite modules, and a sensitivity analysis of the principal levers — spanning capital expenditure, operating cost, and materials — that determine module economics at scale. The aim is to give a mixed audience of researchers and manufacturers a shared, quantitative framework for reasoning about perovskite module cost, and to clarify which levers most influence the path to cost-competitiveness

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