Advanced Materials

LG made quite an impression during CES this year, announcing new OLED TVs that have delighted most reviewers. With premium features and a smart marketing campaign, LG has managed to position OLED as the best TV money can buy. But when will the technology become more affordable?

Nantero was founded in 2001. It has since raised a total of $87.5m via multiple rounds of funding from VCs and strategic investors ($40m raised in 2014). Nantero has generated accumulative sales of $50m to this date. They have 170 approved patents and 200 pending ones protecting spin coating, patterning, circuit design and testing. Its technology enables high-performance non-volatile memory. Its follows a licensing business model.

NanoPhotonica's innovations is in nano-material chemistry, as well as processing and layering techniques for Quantum Dot Light Emitting Diodes (QLEDs). QLED is an emissive display technology, which is similar to OLED but offers larger color gamuts, better viewing angles and potentially better energy efficiency.

In what could prove to be a significant advance in the fabrication of graphene-based nanodevices, a team of Berkeley Lab researchers has discovered a new mechanism for assembling two-dimensional (2D) molecular "islands" that could be used to modify graphene at the nanometer scale.

Whilst the majority of wearable technology products sold today still fit with the components-in-a-box design, 2015 has been a record year for investment in smart clothing and e-textile products.

This profile focuses on their Anisotropic Conductive Film (ACF) work, as part of the Advanced Materials Division, and produced at the Kanuma and Neagari plants. ACF was originally launched by Sony Chemicals over 30 years ago. Dexerials was founded in June 2012 from Sony Chemicals. They have capital stock of 15.7 billion yen, and employ 2366 employees, as of March 2015. Dexerials Corporation was listed in the First Section Market of the Tokyo Stock Exchange on 29th July, 2015.

The TSensors Summit 2015 was held in Celebration, FL this year and was attended by approximately 150 people that had the chance to attend presentations on the latest developments and applications for sensors, and how the concept of abundance (as defined by Peter Diamandis in his book of the same name published in 2012) would be enabled with the proliferation of trillions of sensors deployed worldwide.

Researchers have succeeded in experimentally realizing metallic graphene nanoribbons that are only 5 carbon atoms wide.

Cheap, flexible, wireless graphene communication devices such as mobile phones and healthcare monitors can be directly printed into clothing and even skin.

MnO2 has always been regarded as an ideal material for the electrodes of energy storage devices.

A new material that is both highly transparent and electrically conductive could make large screen displays, smart windows and even touch screens and solar cells more affordable and efficient.

As part of our coverage of printed electronics, IDTechEx has been following the development of printed and flexible sensors. In this article we look back at the most important trends of 2015.

As the hype around wearable technology fades, IDTechEx technology analyst James Hayward looks at where the industry is now.

Carbon nanotubes grown in a furnace aren't always straight. Sometimes they curve and kink, and sometimes they branch off in several directions.

Using semi-conductive polymers, both analog and digital electronic circuits can be created inside living flowers, bushes and trees.

As IDTechEx Research has covered extensively before, there are many alternatives to ITO on the market that have traction in different segments, albeit niche areas for now. However, the situation is more complex than one film layer providing a drop in replacement for an ITO layer, and in this article we explore some of those issues, based on interviews with several organizations using alternatives. The incumbent technology for touch panels is ITO on PET, with Nitto Denko of Japan being the leading supplier.

StoreDot is a startup company with a new process which modifies peptides so that they self-assemble into quantum dots. These proprietary organic compounds are capable of storing an electrical charge or emitting visible light.

biQD LLC has secured two intellectual property licenses: one exclusive license from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and one nonexclusive license from Los Alamos National Security LLC (LANS). Both licenses relate to QDs that are substantially free of toxic elements - both in regards to their physical compositions, as well the elimination of such elements in the manufacturing process.

Widespread industrial adoption of graphene has so far been limited by the expense of producing it. Affordable graphene production could lead to a wide range of new technologies reaching the market, including synthetic skin capable of providing sensory feedback to people with limb prostheses.

BM Research has announced a major engineering breakthrough that could accelerate carbon nanotubes replacing silicon transistors to power future computing technologies.