NanoMarkets will be releasing a report on organic electronics materials markets in December. The following is a brief excerpt

Research into the electrical properties of organic materials dates back to the 1960s and 1970s, but it is only in the last five years or so that stable organic electronics materials with well-defined properties have appeared at a commercial level. Since then organic electronics has made huge strides. It is no longer regarded as little more than scientific curiosities. Today, we already have one sizeable industry - the OLED display industry - built around such materials. Other industry sectors now seem ready to buy into organic electronics to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars per year. These sectors include displays - both frontplanes and backplanes - RFID, photovoltaic panels, sensors and lighting, to name a few.

During 2007, the use of OLEDs in cell phone main displays has accelerated and the first OLED televisions have appeared. This year has also seen the first full-scale production of organic transistor-based display backplanes, an alliance of powerful firms committed to commercializing organic memory, and some early volume shipments of organic RFID tags.

The Worm in the Bud

All of this is very good news for the pioneers of organic electronics, who have been pushing its virtues for years. Unfortunately there is a worm in the organic electronics bud. This "worm" is the simple fact that the materials that are currently used to create organic materials have significant limitations in at least three areas. .

• First, although printing is seen as a key way of keeping down the cost of fabrication of organic devices, some of the most widely used organic electronics materials - the ones based on small molecules - do not lend themselves to solution processing of any kind. Despite all the talk about printed OLEDs, more than 90 percent of the OLED market is accounted for by devices created using vapor deposition of small molecules. There is therefore a need for new and better inks that will support organic electronics within the context of functional printing or at least for useful coating processes, such as spin coating.

• Second, the performance characteristics associated with organic devices are unimpressive when compared to silicon. It is true that organic devices can now compete with thin-film amorphous silicon devices and this should be regarded as a genuine accomplishment. However, there are higher performance thin-film silicon solutions. And the latest silicon innovation, printed silicon, promises all the advantages of printing-based fabrication with orders of magnitude better performance than today's organic electronic materials can accomplish. As a result, there is an urgent need for improvements in mobilities, switching speeds and other characteristics of organic electronics through better designs/architectures, fabrication enhancements or improved materials.

• Third, organic materials are liable to damage by water vapor and extreme temperatures. This means they require encapsulation/barrier treatments. Such treatments are available but in need of improvement. What's more technology developers have often viewed some of the more effective encapsulation/barrier materials as too expensive. There is therefore a clear opportunity for encapsulation techniques and barrier materials that are at once low cost and effective.

Needed: An Organic Materials Revolution

One possibility is that these limitations will be enough to kill off organic electronics altogether. This is possible, but unlikely. For one thing from a materials perspective organic electronics has barely got going yet. Practical organic electronics has made significant use of only a small number of organic materials; Pentacene, P3AT, PAni and PEDOT mostly. So there are plenty of other materials to try. There doesn't seem to be any theoretical reason why organic devices of the future should not exhibit very high mobilities, switching speeds, etc. And now that organic electronics has proved that it can generate some revenues, we believe that there are good economic incentives for developing novel organic electronic materials.

Among the research and commercialization trends that NanoMarkets expects to see over the next five to eight years are improvements in existing materials, the deployment of entirely new organic materials and organic/inorganic hybrids, and new preparations that facilitate fabrication of organic electronics using solution processing/printing:

• Improvements in existing organic electronic materials seem certain. In particular, NanoMarkets expects to see a reduction in impurities that impair electronic (or optical) performance of these materials. Polymer electronics especially seems to be in need of such improvements, since polymers generally have mobilities that are more or less an order of magnitude lower than small molecules. This is a heavy price to pay for the ability to use solution processing. It is not just materials purity that can use an upgrade in the case of polymers; it is the polymerization process itself that begs for attention with the objective of improving the electronic performance characteristics of the final product. There are always tradeoffs, of course, and NanoMarkets expects to see more customization of materials; polymer inks tuned to the requirements of customers, for example.

• And, as we have already noted, improvements that can lead to better barrier and encapsulation materials at lower prices would be very welcome in the organic electronics marketplace. Concerns about oxidation, interactions with water vapor and overall stability significantly hurt the prospects for organic electronics as a whole and reduce the addressable markets for this technology. We believe, in particular, that an important achievement will be when organic materials that can be successfully used in outdoor applications are commercialized. This will better open up signage, automotive applications, photovoltaics, etc. to organic electronics. It will also enable organic electronic materials to compete with inorganic materials over a much broader range of applications and functionalities than at the present time. "Weatherizing," organic electronics could be achieved through novel ink chemistries or through better packaging; both offer opportunities.

• More "organic" materials will actually be hybrids. One recent R&D trend that is rushing towards commercialization is mixing fairly standard organic electronic materials with inorganic materials to improve mobilities and other performance characteristics. Carbon-based nanomaterials are frequently used in this way particularly, carbon nanotubes, nanorods and fullerenes. Pervoskite is another material used in this way.

• More organic materials for printing and other forms of solution processing will appear. Solution processable small molecule materials have already emerged as an option in the OLED sector, where they are viewed as a road towards more cost effective fabrication strategies while preserving familiar materials. NanoMarkets also expects to see the emergence of new kinds of functional inks tailored to the needs of particular kinds of printing; especially flexo and gravure, the fabrication modes that are likely to take a growing role as shipments of printable electronics products ramp up in volume.

• Entirely novel organic materials will be researched and commercialized. As we have already noted the organic electronics materials that have been used to date are just the tip of the iceberg. The role of oligomers in organic electronics, for example, has yet to be determined. Single-crystal organic FETs, based on little used materials such as rubrene, are likely and hold out the prospect for orders of magnitude improvement in the performance of organic transistors. NanoMarkets also anticipates that organic materials will take on new roles in electronics. New organic dielectric materials, including dielectric inks based on polymers and other organic materials, seem like a distinct possibility. So does increasing use of conductive polymers as conductors to offset the high cost of the silver and gold commonly used in electrodes. There may also be new materials offered that facilitate particular kinds of functionality; materials for "chemFET" sensors or organic memories, for example.

All of these trends present significant opportunities for materials firms, both large and small. Some of the trends mentioned above are untraveled paths that could form the basis of VC-backed start-ups yet-to-be born. Others will eventually result in demand in the hundreds of metric tons and will ultimately be more suited to large specialty chemicals/materials firms. It is also worth noting that the next few years may see the beginnings of the use of specifically biological materials for organic electronics, presaging the beginnings of true molecular electronics.

Click here for additional details about the report.