Symposium on Materials and Devices for Flexible and Stretchable Electronics at 2009 MRS Spring Meeting

Call for papers

2009 MRS Spring Meeting, San Francisco, CA, April 13-17

Symposium PP: Materials and Devices for Flexible and Stretchable Electronics

Abstract Deadline: 3 November 2008

www.mrs.org/spring2009

The realization of stretchability in electronics is expected to open up the possibility of many new applications ranging from long-term bionic implants and limbs to robotic sensory skins, ubiquitous electronic displays, and large-area electronics. One of the most difficult hurdles in the development of stretchable electronics is the simultaneous achievement of excellent mechanical robustness and electronic performance. While meeting the usual electrical requirements, materials and circuit architecture for conformable and stretchable electronics must be designed such that their mechanical integrity and electrical functionality are preserved during both fabrication and use of the compliant product. For biomedical applications, an added challenge is the biocompatibility of the component materials, the fabrication process, and physical design of the conformable product with biological tissues.

This symposium aims to gather and evaluate the materials, designs, modeling, and technologies that will enable the fabrication of fully elastic electronic devices (strain >> 1%), and to review specific applications that will directly benefit from highly compliant electronics, including transistors, photonic devices, and sensors.

Although the symposium is mainly concerned with stretchable devices, flexible electronics will also be considered as a topic where industrial participation in the symposium is expected. Industry working in flexible devices needs to have a profound knowledge of mechanical properties of materials used in flexible electronic goods.

Relevant submissions to this symposium will detail the latest research results in the following topical areas of interest:

• Mechanics
• Thin-film mechanics on, or embedded in, polymeric substrates
• Mechanical architecture for deformable electronics
• Biomechanics: bridging the mechanical mismatch between hard artificial devices and soft biological tissues
• Materials and fabrication processes

• Substrate and encapsulation materials
• Active device materials (metals, dielectrics, and semiconductors―organic and inorganic)
• Unconventional device materials (CNTs, graphene, etc.)
• Nanomaterials
• Novel patterning methods compatible with elastic materials
• Ultralow-temperature, printing, and nonplanar-fabrication processes

• Applications
• Electronics: stretchable electronic circuits
• Photonics: stretchable imagers, waveguides, and other optical components
• Biomedical: soft neural interfaces; in vitro instrumentation tools and in vivo neuroprostheses; bioMEMS on polymeric substrates; and prosthetic skin
• Transducers: compliant and elastic microsensors and MEMS; wearable electronics, e-textile, e-skin, and actuators
• Power, interconnect, and packaging issues

Invited speakers (tentative) include:

James Fawcett (Cambridge Ctr. for Brain Repair, United Kingdom), Olle Inganas (Linköping Univ., Sweden), Guggi Kofod (Potsdam Univ., Germany), Gabor Kovacs (EMPA, Switzerland), Chang Liu (Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), Barclay Morrison III (Columbia Univ.), John A. Rogers

(Univ. of Illinois-Urbana Champaign), Tsuyoshi Sekitani (Univ. of Tokyo, Japan), Robert Street (Palo Alto Research Ctr.), Zhigang Suo (Harvard Univ.),

Jan Vanfleteren (Univ. of Gent, Belgium), Sigurd Wagner (Princeton Univ.), and Ellen D. William (Univ. of Maryland).

Symposium Organizers

Siegfried Bauer

Johannes-Kepler Universität Linz, Dept. of Soft Matter Physics,

A-4040 Linz, Austria

Tel 43-732-2468-9241, Fax 43-732-2468-9273, siegfried.bauer [at] jku.at

Stéphanie P. Lacour

University of Cambridge, Nanoscience Center, 11 JJ Thomson Ave., Cambridge CB3 0FF, United Kingdom

Tel 44-1223-760-307, Fax 44-1223-760-309, spl37 [at] cam.ac.uk

Teng Li

University of Maryland, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering,

2141 Glenn L. Martin Hall, College Park, MD 20742

Tel 301-405-0364, Fax 301-314-9477, LiT [at] umd.edu

Takao Someya

University of Tokyo, School of Engineering, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan

Tel 81-3-5841-6820, Fax 81-3-5841-6828, someya [at] ap.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp

Attached below is a call-for-paper file for distribution.