Symposium EN09-Innovations in Materials and Processes for Printed, Flexible and Stretchable Energy-autonomous Sensing Systems

Our current society demands an urgent increase in the efficiency and the sustainability of all processes that surround us, from industries to agriculture and even how we track our health. To optimize and improve those processes, we need to collect as much data as possible, developing and adopting new versatile and ubiquitous sensing systems. Often, we also need coupled actuators triggered by the sensed signals. Concepts like the Internet of Things (IoT), and wearable or plant electronics capitalize on these needs and provide new sensing/actuating technologies with unconventional form factors, such as large-area, mechanical flexibility and/or stretchability, and environmentally friendliness. Nevertheless, such sensors/actuators and the associated electronics that drive and read them require energy. However, plugging them into the grid or to conventional bulky power sources is in most cases not feasible either because the systems are highly distributed or because they need to remain soft and flexible to adapt to curved surfaces or to be worn comfortably. This has triggered the need for suitable energy harvesters and storage systems with compatible form factors. The efficient production of such sensing and actuating systems requires sustainable and low-cost materials, both inorganic and organic/polymeric; as well as techniques to process them, for which solution processing and 2D/3D printing are the most appealing avenues. In this symposium, we provide a venue for discussion of both fundamental and applied research progress in this broad field.

Topics will include:

Ultra-low power or energy-autonomous flexible, stretchable, and printable sensors and actuators for the body, plants, and other curved surfaces with compatible read-out electronics.
Flexible, stretchable, and printable energy harvesters such as photovoltaics, thermoelectric, triboelectric, piezoelectric, etc. for the body, plants, and other curved surfaces.
Flexible, stretchable, and printable energy storage solutions including (super)capacitors, batteries, fuel cells, etc.
3D-printed functional materials and devices for energy-efficient sensing, actuating or energy harvesting/storage.
Flexible, stretchable, and printable autonomous sensing/actuating architectures for wearables and the IoT, including flexible low-power electronics, antennas, etc.
Large-area sensing and actuating systems, energy harvesters and energy storage solutions for autonomous smart textiles, e-skin and robotic skin.
Advanced manufacturing techniques for large-area, flexible, stretchable, and printed sensors/actuators, such as 3D printing, roll-to-roll fabrication, etc.

Invited Speakers:

Levent Beker (Koc University, Turkey)
Paul R. Berger (The Ohio State University, USA)
Francesca Brunetti (Università degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata, Italy)
Mario Caironi (Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Italy)
Ravinder Dahiya (Northeastern University, USA)
Simone Fabiano (Linköping University, Sweden)
Kenjiro Fukuda (RIKEN, Japan)
Martin Kaltenbrunner (Johannes Kepler Universität Linz, Austria)
Ying-Chih Lai (National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan)
Pooi See Lee (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore)
Antonietta Loi (University of Groningen, Netherlands)
Tse Nga (Tina) Ng (University of California, San Diego, USA)
Thuc-Quyen Nguyen (University of California, Santa Barbara, USA)
Almudena Rivadeneyra (Universidad de Granada, Spain)
John Rogers (Northwestern University, USA)
Francesca Santoro (Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen, Germany)
Ravi Silva (University of Surrey, England)
Jae Sung Son (Pohang University of Science and Technology, Republic of Korea)
Eleni Stavrinidou (Linkoping University, Sweden)
Benjamin C. K. Tee (National University of Singapore, Singapore)
Andres Vasquez Quintero (Azalea Vision, Belgium)
Naveen Verma (Princeton University, USA)