Convenient Handling of Flexible Substrate

Team: Hyuk Park, Suwon Seong

Flexible electronic devices have extensively studied and developed, and several products are already in the market. Their applications include foldable/rollable displays, electronic skin, and wearable sensors. During the fabrication, a flexible substrate is required to be firmly attached to a rigid carrier wafer for stable handling without any deformation. After the fabrication, the substrate is detached from the carrier and ready to be used with its flexible form factor. Our group studies the adhesion mechanism, develops a novel detachment process, and demonstrates applications to large-area flexible electronics.

Strain Engineering in Flexible Substrate

Team: Suwon Seong, Seongmin Park

In flexible electronic applications, high-performance rigid materials are challenging to be used as those are fragile when bent. A common approach has been to develop new flexible materials, but their performance and process compatibility are generally inferior to conventional rigid counterparts. To solve this problem, our group develops a novel flexible substrate that contains a strain-attenuating soft layer. This flexible substrate reduces the bending strain applied to the surface, where electronic components are located. Our approach opens a new way of utilizing industry-proven rigid materials in flexible applications.

Flexible Quantum Dot Photosensor for Visible–Infrared Spectrum

Team: Hyung Min Ko

Collecting meaningful information from the body is essential in human-oriented technologies, such as bioimage sensors, soft robotics, and healthcare monitoring. Quantum dots, tiny semiconducting particles in a few nanometers, have unique optoelectronic properties such as bandgap tunability and high light absorption. Our group aims to develop a thin-film photosensor device based on quantum dots with enhanced sensitivity and response time. Specifically, we utilize non-toxic quantum dot materials for biocompatible applications in collaboration with Prof. Sungjee Kim at Chemistry Department, POSTECH.

Flexible Skin Electrode for Human–Electronics Interface

Team: Jinpyeo Jeung, Inyeol Yun

Skin plays an essential role as an interface between the human body and electronics. For sensing applications, tiny electric signals from the body need to be measured with high sensitivity; electric signals are required to be transmitted into the body without loss from the interface for stimulation. Our group develops a flexible skin-electrode with high signal quality and outstanding conformity for excellent human–electronics interface.