Printable Optoelectronic Devices: Opportunities and Challenges for Material Scientists

In the last three decades, conjugated polymers have evolved from being an 
academic curiosity to an important commercial material. Organic 
electronics commonly refers to the optoelectronic devices based on small 
organic molecules or conjugated polymers. It is leading to a new 
revolution of so called "pervasive electronics" wherein electronic devices 
will become more personal and become an integral part of our life. This 
will be possible because of the ease with which the properties of organic 
semiconductors can be fine-tuned along with the low cost of production and 
fabrication. Though small molecules have played an important role in 
organic optoelectronic devices, conjugated polymers still remain more 
attractive due to their ability to form thin-films that are thermally, 
chemically and environmentally stable. However, large-scale syntheses with 
controlled molecular properties still remains a major challenge in this 
area. Continuous flow synthesis provides a potential alternative to batch 
synthesis because of its inherent advantages such as very efficient heat 
exchange, high batch to batch reproducibility, fast mixing, high 
throughput, safety, and the ability to do multistep telescoping synthesis. 
In this presentation, I will discuss some of our recent developments in 
the area of development of explosive sensors as well as in the development 
of Continuous Flow processes for synthesis of conjugated polymers and 
monomers with precise control critical design parameters. 

About Prof. Anil Kumar: 

Prof. Anil Kumar is currently associated with Center for excellence in 
Nanoelectronics, National Center for Photovoltaic Research and Education 
and National Center for Excellence in Technologies for Internal Security. 
Prof. Kumar has published more than 50 papers in peer reviewed 
international journals along with twenty four patents. He has authored 
three book chapters and many papers in conference proceedings. He is the 
recipient of CRSI Bronze Medal 2016, Scopus Young Scientist Award 2007 in 
Chemistry, AICTE Career Award for Young Teacher 2005 and Boyscast 
Fellowship 2003. He has developed an outreach program based on "Science & 
Magic" to promote teaching and practice of science among students of 
different level and has conducted around 100 such workshops in various 
academic institutes around the country in last three years.