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School of Electronic Engineering

Research in Organic Electronics

Image of a laboratory for fabricating polymers

Research in Organic Electronics is undertaken within the Plastic Electronics Research Centre (PERC) and until recently had focused on fabricating and characterising polymer-based devices with a view to (a) understanding the nature of interfaces and (b) identifying the microscopic processes implicated in gate-voltage-stress instability in organic thin film transistors (TFTs). The small-signal electrical measurements and theoretical understanding developed during these earlier studies are now being employed on a range of devices and are the basis of collaborations and publications with university laboratories in the UK, Austria, Brazil, Germany and Portugal.

As a result, the team’s emphasis is now shifting to organic memory devices e.g. FerroFETs and floating-gate TFTs and to the optoelectronic properties of organic devices for sensor, PV and display applications. These activities link closely to the work of Professor Igor Perepichka, in the School of Chemistry in Bangor. In a new development and as part of an IeMRC Flagship Grant in collaboration with Oxford, Manchester and Leeds Universities as well as several major companies and SMEs, the team has begun a programme of work aimed at the high speed vacuum-deposition of organic electronic circuits as an alternative to solution processing. For further details click here.

The team also benefits from access to the UPS/XPS facility in Aberystwyth University via the HEFCW-funded Centre for Advanced Functional Materials and Devices (CAFMaD). The Centre is one of several established as part of the Research and Enterprise Partnership between Bangor and Aberystwyth Universities and fosters research interactions between the Schools of Electronic Engineering and Chemistry at Bangor and the Institute of Mathematics and Physics at Aberystwyth. A review of CAFMaD activities was provided in a power point presentation and a poster at the launch of the 2nd phase of the Research and Enterprise Partnership held in Cardiff on 7th December 2011.

Under the auspices of CAFMaD, the School of Electronic Engineering has also inaugurated an annual interdisciplinary conference for PhD students from Bangor and Aberystwyth Universities.  The 1st Annual Conference on the theme ‘Organic Electronics and Photonics’ was held in Penmaenuchaf Hall Hotel, near Dolgellau on 9th May 2011. To view the Proceedings of the meeting click here.  The theme for the 2nd Annual Conference was ‘Nanostructured Materials and Devices’ and was held at the same venue on 16th May 2012.

2012 Conference programme