Manufacturing with Soft Materials
Towards high precision flexible devices
Towards high precision flexible devices
Increasing demand in compact, hand-held or wearable devices has led to a significant need for new paradigms in device technologies such as flexible electronics. A recent report by National Research Council forecasts a total market share of $ 340 billion for flexible electronic devices by 2030. Maintained functionality under repeated mechanical deformation is the main material challenge flexible electronic device technologies. “Soft-matter” that are highly deformable due to their simultaneous solid and liquid like behavior (colloids, gels, elastomers, polymer solutions etc.), have widely been used in composite configurations for flexible device technologies including soft-sensors, artificial skins and flexible batteries. Despite this increasing interest, the science of manufacturing with soft-matter, unlike conventional industrial materials such as metals and semiconductors, is far from established. In this talk, the efforts in Manufacturing Processes and Machinery Laboratory (MPML) towards realizing high-precision processes and equipment for “soft-matter manufacturing” will be presented. Particular research on the manufacturing of (1) flexible energy storage devices through additive means, (2) highly conductive, three dimensional flexible electronic networks using liquid-metal alloys and (3) micro-engineered optical devices using UV-curable polymers will be emphasized.
Dr. Arda Gozen, Washington State University
Presented February 19, 2016
Dr. Arda Gozen is currently an assistant professor at the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering of Washington State University since summer 2014. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering in 2012 from the Ozdoganlar group at CMU where he also worked as a post-doctoral research associate. Prior to his Ph.D. studies, Dr. Gozen obtained his B.S. degree from Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey. He was the recipient of outstanding performance in teaching award from Mechanical Engineering Department of CMU in 2009. His research interests include micro- and nano-scale manufacturing, flexible-stretchable devices, mechatronics and instrumentation, dynamic systems and controls, precision engineering and piezoelectricity.