BMBF Project Polytos2: Printed Organic Circuits and Memory Successfully Completed

After two years of intense collaboration with nine other consortium partners, Merck, the consortium leader, has successfully completed the Polytos2 project funded with a sum of €4.8 million by the German Federal Ministry of Research and Education (BMBF).

Within the scope of this project, Merck developed new semiconductor polymers with high charge carrier mobility as well as other organic materials for producing printed transistors and circuits and designed for organic electronics applications. Printing machines specifically developed to meet the properties of such materials enable easy, low-cost printing of the electronic components onto plastic films. As the properties of these innovative components differ completely from those of conventional components based on silicon technology, this will open up totally new applications.

One example are smart labels, which are equipped with a temperature sensor and intended for use in food monitoring. Also readers designed specifically for organic electronics have been developed, as well as software solutions that make it possible to read and efficiently handle logistic and product-related data. This has created the basis for the future development of novel organic electronics applications at InnovationLab in Heidelberg.

Apart from Merck, the following companies and institutes participated in the project: BASF SE, Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG, Mannheim University of Applied Sciences, Pepperl + Fuchs GmbH, PolyIC GmbH &Co. KG, Robert Bosch GmbH, SAP AG, TU Darmstadt, Heidelberg University, and University of Mannheim. Associated partners were InnovationLab GmbH and VARTA Microbattery GmbH.