Flexible electronics focus of Holst Centre and Henkel collaboration
1 min read
The Holst Centre, an open innovation initiative by imec and TNO, has announced a research partnership with adhesives specialist, Henkel in the field of flexible electronics. The venture aligns with a large number of Holst Centre activities, such as the research towards large area flexible OPV and OLED lighting and signage.
The partnership has been formed to enable Henkel to further evaluate and develop its optically clear, electrically conductive and moisture barrier technologies on actual devices rather than isolated material samples. This, says Henkel, makes it more efficient to assess the market readiness of new developments.
The adhesives specialist will be adding its experience to Holst Centre's Integration technologies for flexible systems programme in which the research centre built a track record of generic technologies that can decrease the design complexity of flexible electronics. Adhesives, says Thomas Kostka, r&d manager at Henkel, can potentially impact a large number of the investigated processes. "This partnership brings for Henkel a great opportunity to evaluate adhesives in real (organic) electronic devices, allows us to create and test new adhesive concepts with technical experts in flexible electronics and key future end users."
According to Kistka, adhesives with functional properties like electrical conductivity or moisture barrier protection have great potential in future electronics developments. Applications include heterogeneous integration of silicon and plastic electronics and lamination and interconnection of functional foils to form working devices such as flexible solar cells, oled lighting devices or flexible displays.
