CD-Laboratory for Advanced Functional Materials

The Christian Doppler Laboratory for Advanced Functional Materials is dedicated to exploring new ways of integrating electronic devices into printed circuit boards (PCB's). In cooperation with an industrial partner, Austria Technologie & Systemtechnik AG (AT&S), new materials and technologies will be developed which allow direct printing of such components onto the circuit boards. This approach will lead to smaller, lighter and eventually also cheaper electronic devices. Recently, direct write technologies have been found capable of achieving the aim of producing cheap embedded components. By using such technologies, e.g. ink-jet printing, the electronic devices can by applied directly onto the PCB thus making expensive lithographic and/or assembly-processes obsolete. To print resistors, capacitors or transistors directly, it is necessary to "tailor" the materials used concerning their physical properties and their processability to functionalize them. For this purpose novel conducting and electroactive polymers and inorganic as well as organic pigments and nanoparticles are used.