Human society made great progress in the last century because of science and technology. The dawn of electronic age started with silicon, but today are organic semiconductors envisioned to transform the world of electronic circuits and display technology. Organic semiconductors are a broad family of organic molecular materials that exhibit specific properties similar to inorganic semiconductors. The device fabrication is not limited to high-end vacuum technologies; however, due to material solubility, we can apply “wet technologies” such as inkjet printing.
Organic electronics is still an entirely new field of electronics that offers new applications because of the almost infinite variability of organic materials, low-cost fabrication, suitable electrical properties, mechanical flexibility, etc. After a decade of tremulous research, we have commercially available organic light-emitting diodes (OLED) displays for mobile phones or TV. Other applications such as organic solar cells, logic circuits, and sensors for medical electronics are coming here in a short time.
Very first devices already reached the market and the market share growth is amazing for such novel technology that can be still improved a lot. On the other hand, fundamental research is still needed for further development of devices although some basic principles have been revealed already. Since organic electronics has a strong interdisciplinary nature, it is still a challenge for state-of-the-art research and development.
Actually, it is fascinating to state
“Yes, it works, but we are still not sure why”.