Materials, Manufacturing and Device Innovations for Soft Electronics

Innovative materials and manufacturing technologies are critical in building next-generation electronics devices, especially when we are migrating from conventional electronics to emerging electronics with different form factors, such as flexible, stretchable and wearable electronics, which hold promise in a broad range of areas such as healthcare, biomedical, robotics, human-machine interfaces, etc.
In this talk, I will give an overview of our research program at University of Houston on materials, manufacturing and device innovation for flexible, stretchable and wearable electronics. I will first present our recent advancements in inorganic semiconductor based ultra-thin flexible and stretchable electronics, from transfer printed single crystal semiconductor and low temperature solution processed semiconductor. An ultra-thin Si flex-camera and thin wearable haptic electronics and sensors will be demonstrated. Existing strategies to enable mechanical stretchability in stretchable electronics heavily rely on mechanical architectures and device configurations, which impose a heavy burden on sophisticated fabrication and associated cost. I will show our recent effort on developing intrinsically stretchable electronics, circuits and sensors based on all-elastomeric electronic materials through solution casting and screen printing processes. Such intrinsically stretchable electronics mimics the format and functionalities of our elastic human skin. The last part of my talk will show our recent progress on developing 3D curvilinear shaped devices. A new manufacturing approach, namely conformal additive transfer printing, will be discussed. Different type of 3D curvilinear device such as smart contact lenses with integrated sensors and electronics for multi-functionalities will be demonstrated.

Cunjiang Yu received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at Arizona State University in 2010, and was a postdoc fellow at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign before joining the University of Houston in 2013. He is currently the Bill D. Cook Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, with joint appointments in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, and Biomedical Engineering. Yu's research interest encompasses the fields of solid state electronics, materials, micro/nano fabrication, and solid mechanics. His work focuses on mechanical design, material integration and manufacturing of soft electronics for various applications. He holds 3 patents and has 11 pending patents. He is a recipient of Doctoral New Investigator Award from ACS Petroleum Research Fund (2016), NSF CAREER Award (2016), Award for Excellence in Research & Scholarship from UH (2016), and Young Investigator Award from the American Vacuum Society (2015).