Breakthrough advancements in Organic Large Area Electronics (OLAE) are ahead of us thanks to the RoLA-FLEX project that has officially kicked-off on 1st May 2020. Although its Kick-off meeting needed to be held remotely via a teleconference (on 6th May), the consortium partners managed to have a fruitful meeting and discuss the plan for the project’s first year.
RoLA–FLEX is an industry driven project led by National Technical University of Athens, which provides innovative solutions to the existing OLAE challenges associated with performance and lifetime, through:
- (a) the fabrication and upscaling of organic semiconductors with high charge mobilities (up to 10 cm2/Vs) and high power conversion efficiencies (16% in OPV cell and 12% in OPV module);
- (b) the development of metal oxides for charge carrier selective contacts and metal nanoinks for highly conductive micropatterns with increased environmental stability;
- (c) the seamless incorporation of high speed laser digital processing in Roll-2-Roll Organic Photovoltaic (OPV) module fabrication and photolithography based Organic Thin Film Transistor (OTFT) manufacturing and
- (d) the demonstration of two TRL5+ OLAE prototypes enabled by the developed materials and innovative processes:
- A smart energy platform for IoT devices powered by ITO-free and flexible OPVs operating at low indoor light conditions.
- A new generation of bezel-less and fully bendable smart watches integrating FHD, ultra-bright OLCD/OTFT displays.
RoLA-FLEX will advance all the aforementioned technologies to at least TRL5 within its timeframe. RoLA-FLEX will create an opportunity for a yearly increase in revenues of almost €400 M only 6 years after its end, accompanied by hundreds of new jobs. A timely investment in the early days of these new markets can ensure significant market share for the SMEs and Industries involved and greatly boost EU’s competitiveness globally.
