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Printed and Molecular Electronics

The Printed and Molecular Electronics (PME) group was officially created in 2014, under the guidance of Mario Caironi, inheriting the experience of his printed electronics team active at Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia from 2010. PME operates at the Center for Nano Science and Technology @PoliMi (CNST) of the IIT in Milan. PME aims at improving the knowledge on the electronic and optoelectronic properties of solution-processable semiconductors, in particular conjugated organic materials, and at taking full advantage of their printability in order to deliver applications in the large-area and flexible electronics fields. PME group is therefore interested in clarifying charge injection and transport properties in thin films of semiconducting conjugated molecules and polymers, but also in blends and organic-inorganic hybrid semiconductors, in order to build a rationale allowing engineers to control these properties in electronic devices such as field-effect transistors, photodetectors, thermoelectric generators and biosensors. PME group is leading the development of printed organic electronics operating at high frequency, greatly expanding its applications. More recently, PME has been active in shaping the field of edible electronics, aiming at developing non-toxic edible electronic systems for the healthcare and food safety that are digested or even metabolized in the body after performing their function. Such activities complement its efforts in organic bioelectronics, where PME aims at large-area devices for rapid diagnostic and point-of-care applications.
PME activity therefore spans from the investigation of fundamental properties, where it is led by curiosity, to applications, which is PME final goal.

Research Activities

Laboratories

PME Group lab facilities are hosted at the Center for Nano Science and Technology of Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia in Milan. The main labs are the WETLAB, the Electrical Characterization lab and the “iLabel” lab.
The WETLAB is a grey room for device manufacturing. It is equipped with fumehoods and gloveboxes. Printing tools for device manufacturing include: two inkjet printers, a super inkjet printer, a bar/knife coater, a slot-die coater, a screen printer. We perform photolithographic processes on plastic at PoliFab, the micro- and nanotechnology center of the “Politecnico di Milano”.
The Electrical Characterization Lab is equipped with everything needed for the full characterization of electronics devices: electrical probe stations in air, nitrogen and vacuum, semiconductor parameter analyzers and a high-frequency prober (up to 10 GHz). Custom setups for thermoelectrics (Seebeck, generator efficiency, out-of-plain thermal conductivity) and photodetectors measurements are present.
The “iLabel” lab hosts the group activities related to the POR FESR 2014-2020 project supported by Regione Lombardia towards the development of a smart label for interactive and eco-friendly packaging. The lab hosts a prototype under development of a roll-to-roll tool for the patterning of high resolution electrodes and electronic devices on plastic.

The group, in collaboration with colleagues at CNST, has also developed a Charge Modulation Micro-Spectroscopy setup to investigate charge carriers transport and relaxation in solution-processed field-effect transistors in operando.

Highlights

December 2020: Mario Caironi joins the editorial board of IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices
Record high operation frequency of 160 MHz achieved in a transistor based on a printed polymer semiconductor (LINK)
Out Now! Organic Flexible Electronics: Fundamentals, Devices, and Applications
Cosseddu, Caironi (Editors)
Woodhead Pub Ltd