Links: TechnologyReview.com Article / PowerFilm Solar Home Page /

If Phicot, a subsidiary of PowerFilm Solar of Ames, Iowa has their way, plastic-based displays with amorphous silicon electronics printed on them will be far easier to manufacture in large numbers than ever before. The plastic-based displays offer a number of advantages over glass-backed displays such as flexibility, light weight, and ruggedness.

(Print out: This plastic material is used as the backing for Phicot's amorphous silicon electronics. Photo Credit: Phicot)

Engineers and technophiles have long dreamt of plastic-based displays that are flexible, lightweight, and rugged compared to their glass-backed counterparts. But plastic screens still aren't widely available, partly because they're so hard to manufacture reliably in large numbers.

Now a company called Phicot has adapted a technique for printing amorphous silicon electronics onto plastic that could finally make such displays practical. The manufacturing technique, already used to make cheap solar cells, involves depositing chemicals on long sheets of plastic as they are fed through a series of rollers. Phicot is a subsidiary of PowerFilm of Ames, IA, which already makes amorphous silicon solar cells using this roll-to-roll process.

"The basic technology of roll-to-roll can bring the price down and make plastic an excellent option for the back half of the display," says Frank Jeffrey, cofounder and CEO of PowerFilm.

(Source: TechnologyReview.com (MIT), PowerFilm Solar)