There is exciting research being conducted on the university level in the field of flexible and printed electronics. Long respected for its work in the fields of coatings and polymer science, the University of Southern Mississippi (USM) School of Polymer Science and Engineering brought its expertise to printed electronics in 2014, adding industry experts to its department.
 
With the vision from department head Dr. Jeffery Wiggins to bring contemporary polymer science into the department, the school made the strategic hire of Dr. Jason Azoulay in 2014 and Dr. Xiaodan Gu in 2016. The new hires are both leaders in developing organic electronics: Dr. Azoulay is an expert in conjugated polymer synthesis and the infrared photodetector technology, and Dr. Gu has focused on the manufacture of the printed electronics, including R2R printing of solar cells, flexible and wearable electronics and its related structure-property relationships.
 
With its team in place, Dr. Gu said the USM is examining many promising fields.
 
“There are several areas of thrust,” Dr. Gu, assistant professor at the University of Southern Mississippi School of Polymer Science and Engineering, noted. “We are interested in printed renewable energy, infrared photodetector, wearable electronics and organic magnetic materials.”
 
Dr. Gu said that USM’s diverse skills and excellent collaboration are keys to its success in research.
 
“USM has built a team with complementary skill sets, allowing seamless teamwork between the functional polymer synthesis, device morphology, and device engineering,” Dr. Gu observed.
 
“The design of the device starts from formulating a chemical structure suitable for the targeted applications,” he continued. “At USM, we routinely create polymers with advanced properties. Then the next generation R2R manufacturing process is used to deposit those functional materials to form the advanced device using a printing technology much like printing new papers. The device would be tested for its performance and related to its nanoscale morphology (the way that polymer chain orients in nanoscale). Feedback will be given to the synthetic group to fine-tune the polymer for the targeted property.
 
“It is important for all the researchers to be under one roof to quickly provide optimization of the synthesis and deposition,” Dr. Gu added. “USM has the unique expertise and equipment to achieve that.”
 
Dr. Gu said that there are several unique types of equipment that USM has devoted to its research.
 
“The 10-meter XENOCs SAXS WAXS tool is unique for the morphology characterization for polymer thin film,” he pointed out. “There is well-equipped synthesizer capability to design and synthesize the required polymers. The newly funded NSF program brings in a state-of-the-art device manufacture lab.” 
 
USM has already made significant advances in the field of flexible and printed electronics.
 
“USM has designed some unique low-bandgap that is active in the NIR region,” Dr. Gu said. “We are one of the few groups that are capable of performing R2R printing of organic electronic materials.”
 
Dr. Gu said that it is interesting to see what printed electronics can already accomplish.
 
“The most exciting project I have worked on to demonstrate what printed electronics can accomplish was during my post-doctoral with Prof. Zhenan Bao at Stanford University,” he added. “We showed that by using printed electronics, we could power an electronic watch solely through solar energy. It was fascinating to see that my work has directly transformed into a tool that I can use every day.”
 
Dr. Gu and USM see great potential ahead for the field.
 
“There is tremendous growth potential for the printed electronics,” he concluded. “The market is the fastest growing in the polymer field.  Clean energy industry generates hundreds of billions in economic activity and photonics, and the optoelectronics industry is expected to surpass $1 trillion in 2017.”