Photovoltaics play a vital role in the transition to sustainable and green energy sources. However, conventional rigid and bulky solar cells fail to address the needs of emerging applications where mechanical compliance and high specific power are vital. In this regard, hybrid organic-inorganic halide perovskites attract significant interest owing to their outstanding mechanical and optoelectronic properties. In this contribution, we present transparent-conductive-oxide (TCO)-free and lightweight quasi-2D flexible perovskite solar cells incorporating arylamine organic cations with a champion-specific power of up to 44 W g-1 and an efficiency of 20.1%. Freestanding and unencapsulated flexible devices display admirable environmental stability and mechanical resilience. Rigid devices exhibit excellent operational stability, preserving above 97.2% of their performance after 1000 h of continuous operation at the maximum power point. Moreover, to show the feasibility and potential for upscaling, we demonstrated a photovoltaic module that enables energy-autonomous operation of a hybrid solar-powered quadcopter while constituting only 1/400 of the drone’s weight.
Modern societies rely on a multitude of electronic and robotic systems, with emerging stretchable and soft devices enabling ever closer human machine interactions. These advances however take their toll on our ecosystem, with high energy demand, greenhouse gas emission and environmental pollution. Mitigating some of these adverse effects, this talk introduces materials and methods for soft systems that biodegrade. Based on highly stretchable biogels and degradable elastomers, our forms of soft electronics and robots are designed for prolonged operation in ambient conditions without fatigue, but fully degrade after use through biological triggers. Electronic skins provide sensory feedback. Enabling autonomous operation, stretchable and biodegradable batteries are demonstrated that power wearable sweat sensors. 3D printing of biodegradable hydrogels enables omnidirectional soft robots with multifaceted optical sensing abilities. Going beyond, we introduce a systematically-determined compatible materials systems for the creation of fully biodegradable, high-performance electrohydraulic soft actuators. These embodiments reliably operate up to high electric fields, show performance comparable to non-biodegradable counterparts, and survive over 100,000 actuation cycles. Pushing the boundaries of sustainable electronics, we demonstrate a concept for growth and processing of fungal mycelium skins as biodegradable substrate material. Mycelium-based batteries with capacities as high as ~3.8 mAh cm−2 allow to power autonomous sensing devices including a Bluetooth module and humidity and proximity sensors, all integrated onto mycelium circuit boards.
The goal of the SensApp FET-Open project is to develop an innovative super-sensor that will be able to detect Alzheimer’s disease (AD) biomarkers (β-amyloid, Tau and pTAU) in peripheral blood. Considering that nowadays an accurate diagnosis of AD requires the highly invasive withdrawal and analysis of cerebrospinal fluid, SensApp will represent a breakthrough in the field of AD diagnosis thanks to the ability to detect the early stage of the disease by a simple blood collection. We call Droplet-Split-and-Stack (DSS) the new technology that will emerge from SensApp. The achievement of SensApp goal is enabled by the interdisciplinary cooperation between different research institutions and one company involved in the key fields of the project, Vrije Universiteit Brussels, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, University of Linz, Ginolis Ltd, IRCCS Centre “Bonino Pulejo”, under the coordination of CNR-Institute of Applied Sciences and Intelligent Systems. This communication will illustrate the progress of the activities.
Thin polymer foams with a closed cell void-structure can be internally charged by silent or partial discharges
within the voids. The resulting material, which carries positive and negative charges on the internal void surfaces
is called a ferroelectret. Ferroelectrets behave like typical ferroelectrics, hence they provide a novel class of ferroic
materials. The soft foams are strongly piezoelectric in the 3-direction, but show negligible piezoelectric response
in the transverse direction. This, together with a very low pyroelectric coefficient, make ferroelectrets highly
suitable for flexible electroactive transducer element which can be integrated in thin bendable organic electronic
devices. Here we describe some fundamental characteristics of cellular ferroelectrets and present a number of
promising examples for a possible combination with various functional polymer systems. Our examples focus on
flexible ferroelectret field-effect transistor systems for large-area sensor skins and microphones, flexible large-array
position detectors (touchpad), and stretchable large-array pressure sensors.
Conference Committee Involvement (6)
Electroactive Polymer Actuators, Sensors, and Devices (EAPAD) 2025
17 March 2025 | Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Electroactive Polymer Actuators and Devices (EAPAD) XXVI
25 March 2024 | Long Beach, California, United States
Electroactive Polymer Actuators and Devices (EAPAD) XXV
13 March 2023 | Long Beach, California, United States
Electroactive Polymer Actuators and Devices (EAPAD) XXIV
7 March 2022 | Long Beach, California, United States
Electroactive Polymer Actuators and Devices (EAPAD) XXIII
8 March 2021 | Online Only, California, United States
Electroactive Polymer Actuators and Devices (EAPAD) XXII
27 April 2020 | Online Only, California, United States
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