{"251181":{"#nid":"251181","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Georgia Tech Develops Inkjet-Based Circuits at Fraction of Time and Cost","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EResearchers from Georgia Tech, the University of Tokyo and Microsoft Research have developed a novel method to rapidly and cheaply make electrical circuits by printing them with commodity inkjet printers and off-the-shelf materials. For about $300 in equipment costs, anyone can produce working electrical circuits in the 60 seconds it takes to print them.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe technique, called instant inkjet circuits, allows the printing of arbitrary-shaped conductors onto rigid or flexible materials and could advance the prototyping skills of non-technical enthusiasts and novice hackers.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe believe there is an opportunity to introduce a new approach to the rapid prototyping of fully\u0026nbsp;custom-printed circuits,\u201d said Gregory Abowd, Regents\u2019 Professor in the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech and an investigator in the study. \u201cUnlike existing methods for printing conductive patterns, conductivity in our technique emerges within a few seconds and without the need for special equipment.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERecent advances in chemically bonding metal particles allowed the researchers to use silver nanoparticle ink to print the circuits and avoid thermal bonding, or sintering, a time-consuming and potentially damaging technique due to the heat. Printing the circuits on resin-coated paper, PET film and glossy photo paper worked best. Researchers also made a list of materials to avoid, such as canvas cloths and magnet sheets.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cEverything we introduced in our research is available in the market and makes it possible for people to try this at home,\u201d said Yoshihiro Kawahara, Associate Professor at the University of Tokyo and the primary investigator who developed the methodology while in Atlanta. \u201cThe method can be used to print circuit boards, sensors and antennas with little cost, and it opens up many new opportunities.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETo make the technique possible, researchers optimized commercially available tools and materials including printers, adhesive tape and the silver ink. Designing the circuit itself was accomplished with desktop drawing software, and even a photocopy of a drawing can produce a working circuit.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOnce printed, the circuits can be attached to electronic components using conductive double-sided tape or silver epoxy adhesive, allowing full-scale prototyping in mere hours. The homemade circuits might allow tinkerers to quickly prototype crude calculators, thermostat controls, battery chargers or any number of electronic devices.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cUsing this technology in the classroom, it would be possible to introduce students to basic electronics principles very cheaply, and they could use a range of electronic components to augment the experience,\u201d said Steve Hodges, a team member from Microsoft Research.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETo show the capabilities of the new technique for capacitive touch sensing - the interaction prominent in smartphone interfaces - and the flexibility of the printed circuits, the researchers attached a capacitive ribbon with embedded inkjet-printed circuits into a drinking glass. The capacitive ribbon sensor formed to the contour of the glass and, when connected to a micro controller, was able to measure how much liquid was left in the glass.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe details for replicating the process were presented at the 2013 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp 2013) in Zurich, Switzerland, Sept. 8-12. The research \u201cInstant Inkjet Circuits: Lab-based Inkjet Printing to Support Rapid Prototyping of UbicComp Devices\u201d won a best paper award at the conference and can be found here: http:\/\/dl.acm.org\/citation.cfm?id=2493486.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EResearchers from Georgia Tech, the University of Tokyo and Microsoft Research have developed a novel method to rapidly and cheaply make electrical circuits by printing them with commodity inkjet printers and off-the-shelf materials. For about $300 in equipment costs, anyone can produce working electrical circuits in the 60 seconds it takes to print them.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe technique, called instant inkjet circuits, allows the printing of arbitrary-shaped conductors onto rigid or flexible materials and could advance the prototyping skills of non-technical enthusiasts and novice hackers.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Researchers from Georgia Tech, the University of Tokyo and Microsoft Research have developed a novel method to rapidly and cheaply make electrical circuits by printing them with commodity inkjet printers and off-the-shelf materials."}],"uid":"27592","created_gmt":"2013-11-05 09:47:48","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:15:18","author":"Joshua Preston","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2013-11-05T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2013-11-05T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"251191":{"id":"251191","type":"image","title":"Inkjet-based Circuit","body":null,"created":"1449243813","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:43:33","changed":"1475894931","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:48:51","alt":"Inkjet-based Circuit","file":{"fid":"198110","name":"circuit.png","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/circuit.png","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/circuit.png","mime":"image\/png","size":1100330,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/circuit.png?itok=eb5xmpAn"}},"251201":{"id":"251201","type":"image","title":"Printing with Silver Nanoparticle Ink","body":null,"created":"1449243813","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:43:33","changed":"1475894931","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:48:51","alt":"Printing with Silver Nanoparticle Ink","file":{"fid":"198111","name":"printer.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/printer.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/printer.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":741580,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/printer.jpg?itok=3jXhvoHi"}}},"media_ids":["251191","251201"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39451","name":"Electronics and Nanotechnology"},{"id":"39471","name":"Materials"},{"id":"39501","name":"People and Technology"},{"id":"39491","name":"Renewable Bioproducts"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71881","name":"Science and Technology"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJoshua Preston\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jpreston@cc.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ejpreston@cc.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E678.231.0787\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jpreston@cc.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}