Spraying light: ambient-air fabrication of large-area emissive devices on complex-shaped surfaces

Abstract

Light-emitting electrochemical cells, featuring uniform and efficient light emission over areas of 200 cm(2) , are fabricated under ambient air with a for-the-purpose developed "spray-sintering" process. This fault-tolerant fabrication technique can also produce multicolored emission patterns via sequential deposition of different inks based on identical solvents. Significantly, additive spray-sintering using a mobile airbrush allows a straightforward addition of emissive function onto a wide variety of complex-shaped surfaces, as exemplified by the realization of a light-emitting kitchenware fork.

Keywords: ambient fabrication; complex surfaces; large-area light emission; light-emitting electrochemical cell; solution-based processing.