12th International Symposium on Functional Electron Systems (F-12)
Abstract
In July 2015, the University of Washington will be hosting the 12th International Symposium on Functional pi-Electron Systems. This is an international meeting that is held every 2 years and focuses on the latest developments in the area of pi-conjugated semiconducting molecules and polymers. The first conference of this series was held in Japan in 1989, and since then, the meeting has rotated through Europe, North America, and Asia in that order. The previous two meetings were held in Beijing, China and Arcachon, France. As such, by next year, the US would not have hosted the meeting in 6 years. The field of organic electronics and piconjugated organic materials was established in the US in the 1970s. We believe that it is essential that the US maintains the lead in this area of research. With this in mind, our goal is to provide a forum where scientists from around the world can present their latest results in the evergrowing area of organic electronics. We have invited 39 leading scientists from the world to be plenary and invited speakers at this conference. We expect a further 400-500 participants to attend the meeting. The conference will provide an opportunity for leading practitioners in this and closely related fields to compare notes, assess the current state-of-the-art of these technologies, identify major obstacles to commercial deployment, and brainstorm about what the future might hold. Organic semiconducting materials are an exciting class of materials with applications in the area of flexible electronic devices with the potential of being embedded into textiles or be used in tactile sensors or electronic skin. They are already being used as the active material in a number of commercially available electronic devices such as organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) in cellphone displays. More recently, much effort has been put forth towards developing organic semiconducting materials for use in flexible organic photovoltaics (OPVs). Flexible OPVs represent a unique opportunity in renewable energy where organic semiconducting materials can afford high power generation to weight ratios that will simultaneously reduce the module, installation, and transportation costs associated with these devices. Furthermore, there is increasing interest in the area of bioelectronics to enable electronic devices that can directly communicate with our bodies. There are three primary goals for this conference: (i) Provide a space where scientists who work in this area of research can share their latest results with each other to accelerate international collaborations; (ii) To make sure that the US remains leaders in the area of organic semiconducting materials by hosting this conference that has not been held in the US in six years; (iii) To increase diversity of the scientists who work in this area of research, and help promote women and URMs by ensuring that they are included as invited speakers in the conference.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Aug 12, 2016
- Source ID
- N000141512536
Entities
People
- Christine K. Luscombe
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy
- University of Washington