Low-cost, high rate, roll-to-roll manufacturing of organic solar cell powered high frequency flexible communication system Navy STTR FY2010.A Sol No.: Navy STTR FY2010.A Topic No.: N10A-T031 Topic Title: Low-cost, high rate, roll-to-roll manufacturing of organic solar cell powered high frequency flexible communication system Proposal No.: N10A-031-0214 Firm: Omega Optics, Inc. 10306 Sausalito Dr Austin, Texas 78759-6113 Contact: Harish Subbaraman Phone: (512) 996-8833 Web Site: www.omegaoptics.com Abstract: Having realized the bottlenecks in electronic systems-on-film manufacturing, Omega Optics and the University of Texas at Austin propose to develop a low-cost, high rate, roll-to-roll manufacturing process for hybrid electronic systems on flexible substrates. Roll-to-roll fabrication of hybrid systems enables the utilization of the combined advantages of organic, inorganic and other material systems on the same substrate in addition to reducing the production cost. In this program, inorganic and organic material inks will be developed and characterized for our specific processes. In our proposed technique, the high rate manufacturing comes from the utilization of a computer controlled multi-stage digital ink-jet printer capable of printing different materials simultaneously. In order to maintain high alignment accuracy of <1 micron, a pattern recognizing software integrated with a microscope is proposed which controls the position of the substrate via a feedback loop. Another advantage of our system over the conventional printing systems is that our proposed process does not require any expensive template preparation and has lower material wastage. In phase I, a phased array antenna (PAA) system on film with true time delay lines, switches, transmission line Conversion Bridge, amplifiers and thin film antenna arrays will be integrated on a Kapton thin film and demonstrated. Benefits: The proposed approach will lead to low-cost, high throughput manufacturability of hybrid electronic systems on flexible substrates. The proposed high throughput automated roll-to-roll ink-jet manufacturing technology will enable integration of different materials on different layers with excellent alignment control between different stages. The proposed hybrid communication system explores the full advantages of inorganic and organic semiconductors on flexible substrates. The immediately accessible markets for printed inorganic and organic electronic devices on flexible substrates are printable active phased array antennas, back plane drivers for displays, active RFIDs, Smart skins, actuators, batteries, solar cells, signage and sensors. Our technology, that involves integrating hybrid electronic materials such as Organic semiconductors, CNT, Silicon, Silver etc, is targeting 90% of the entire flexible electronics market. Additionally, due to the high mobility of CNT, we are also targeting the market of flexible communication devices that require high frequency operation, including T/R module for conformal phased array antenna which is critical for space/airborne and satellite applications, for which potential customers are NASA, AF, Navy, Army, and manufacturers of high frequency RF identification tags, Sensors, and displays. Return