Imagine an iShirt. I know “iShirt” is a cornball example but just imagine a shirt, made of the usual organic material-based fabrics that shirts are usually made of, that does all of the stuff a smart-phone does or really any other sort of electronic. Or imagine a smart bandage, artificial skin, electronic wallpaper. . . This is the post-silicon future and it’d seem to be coming fast.Researchers at Wake Forest University have developed a molecule that could theoretically change everything. Extremely large, stable, highly conductive, and cheap, the molecule represents a step toward the “electronics everywhere” future, Wake Forest’s Oana Jurchescu says in a press blast. At the same time, you might also consider it a (potentially) vital step in the democritization of technology that the future should also represent. Their work is published in the current edition of the Advanced Materials journal.The thing is that silicon, which our electronics are based on, is expensive. So-called organic electronics, however, are based on carbon materials—plastics, in other words, which are cheap, offer easy manufacturing, and are lightweight and durable, Jurchescu says. Large carbon-based framworks are nothing new, but this is the first time that reserachers have been able to make them stable.“To accelerate the use of these technologies, we need to improve our understanding of how they work,” Jurchescu explains. “The devices we study (field-effect transistors) are the fundamental building blocks in all modern-based electronics. Our findings shed light on the effect of the structure of the molecules on their electrical performance, and pave the way towards a design of improved materials for high-performance, low-cost, plastic-based electronics.”Generally speaking, “electronics everywhere” is something of a nightmare scenario for me, but the idea of an iPhone that I at the very least wouldn’t have to worry about dropping has some appeal. Anyhow, plastics—the future is plastics. Again.Reach this writer at michaelb@motherboard.tv.
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