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- 2010-2-22
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本帖{zh1}由 lilywizardry 于 2010-2-21 23:51 编辑
Lighting
照明
Printed circuit
印刷电路
A way to turn out lighting by the metre
一种快速生产照明器材的方法
Feb 18th 2010 | From The Economist print edition
2010年2月18日 | 源自《经济学人》发行版
灯泡已成为历史！
THE printing of body parts (see article) will probably remain a bespoke industry for ever. Printed lighting, though, might be mass produced. That, at least, is the promise of a technology being developed in Sweden by Ludvig Edman of Umea University and Nathaniel Robinson of Linkoping. Dr Edman and Dr Robinson have taken a promising technique called the organic light-emitting diode, or OLED, and tweaked it in an ingenious way. The result is a sheet similar to wallpaper that can illuminate itself at the flick of a switch.
打印身体的零件可能将永远会是一种预约业务。而打印照明器材却可以大量生产。至少通过瑞典Umea大学的Ludvig Edman和林雪平的Nathaniel Robinson的开发工作可以让我们看到该项技术的前景。Edman博士和Robinson博士已开启了一项颇具前景的、被称作是有机发光二极管（即OLED）的技术，而且他们使用了一种非常独特的方式来发展这项技术。其产品是一种通过轻触开关便能够自己发光的薄如墙纸的发光器材。
An OLED is a layer of semiconducting polymer sandwiched between two conductive layers that act as electrodes. When a current is passed between these electrodes, the polymer gives off light. The light is created by electrons released from one electrode layer falling into positively charged “holes” that have been generated by the polymer’s interaction with the other layer. These holes are gaps in the polymer’s electronic structure where an electron ought to be, but isn’t.
有机发光二极管的结构就像三明治：在两片导电体电极层之间夹嵌着一层高分子半导体材料。当电流通过两个电极时高分子材料便会发光。首先，高分子材料与一个电极层相互作用形成了带正电荷的“空穴”，随后当电子从另一个电极释放到这些“空穴”中的时候便产生了光。高分子材料电子结构的孔隙内通常应该包含一个电子，但是OLED的高分子材料的电子结构孔隙内却没有电子，因而形成了空穴。
Semiconductors are strange materials. Both holes and electrons can move around within them. (The holes move in a manner analogous to the gap in a sliding-tile puzzle.) They are also finicky. Only some sorts of conductors will work as sources of electrons. Only some sorts will work as sources of holes. And no known material works well for both.
半导体是奇特的材料。空穴和电子均可在其内部运动。（空穴的运动方式与华容道游戏中空位的移动方式差不多。(“sliding-tile puzzle”的翻译请参见“”)）而他们的运动也有较严格的条件。只有少数几种导电体能够成为有效的电子源。同时只有为数不多的几种导电体可以作为有效的空穴源。而在已知材料中尚未发现既能做电子源又能做空穴源的材料。
The electron source needs to be a metal, and the usual choice is aluminium. Of course, metals are opaque, so the other electrode must be transparent. Fortunately, there are two materials that are both transparent and good hole-generators. One is indium tin oxide. The other is known as poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene).
电子源应该是一种金属材料，通常选用铝。当然，金属是不透明的，因此另一个电极必须是透明的。所幸有两种材料既透明性又可作为较好的空穴源。一种是氧化锡铟。另一种则是聚合物（3、4-亚甲基二氧乙烯噻吩）。
OLEDs are, however, awkward to make. First, a precisely crafted layer of aluminium has to be created. Then the other two layers are sprayed onto it using an inkjet printer. If the metal electrode could be replaced then it might be possible to make the whole thing using just a printer. That would simplify matters enormously. And that is what Dr Edman and Dr Robinson believe they have achieved.
然而，有机发光二极管的制造非常困难。首先，必须十分精巧的制作一层精密的铝层。然后使用喷墨打印机将另外两层喷涂到铝层上。如果金属电极可以被更换那么将有可能仅使用一台打印机就完成整个产品的制造。如果那样的话事情就简单多了。而Edman博士和Robinson博士认为他们已经实现了这个工艺过程。
To do so, they have gone back to their high-school physics lessons. As every schoolboy knows, carbon in the form of graphite is the exception to the rule that metallic elements conduct electricity and non-metallic ones do not. Graphite, which is black in bulk, consists of layers of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal grid. When the substance is only a few of these layers thick, though, it is known as graphene and is transparent.
为了做到这一点，他们不得不先复习高中物理课程。如每一个学生所知，碳在以石墨的形式存在时既不像金属那样导电也不像非金属那样不导电。石墨是黑色零散的，包含一层组织成六边形栅格的碳原子层。当形成的物质达到几个碳原子层的厚度时，便形成了被称为石墨吩的透明物质。
Graphene sheets are not easy to handle. But Dr Edman and Dr Robinson found another team of researchers, led by Manish Chhowalla of Rutgers University, that was working on making graphene electrodes. Unfortunately, they found that graphene by itself will not do the job. But they overcame its reluctance by blending the semiconducting polymer with potassium trifluoromethylsulfonate. This compound consists of positively charged potassium ions and negatively charged trifluoromethylsulfonates. When the current is switched on, the two sorts of ion move in opposite directions to the junctions between the polymer and the electrodes. The trifluoromethylsulfonate ions assist the process of hole formation in poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) at one junction. That is useful. What is crucial, though, is that the potassium ions liberate electrons from graphene at the other junction.
石墨吩薄板处理起来并不容易。但Edman博士和Robinson博士找到另外一个由Rutgers大学的Manish Chhowalla带领的研究小组，专门负责石墨吩电极的制造工作。然而，这个小组的成员发现仅仅使用石墨吩无法达到预期的效果。于是，他们通过将高分子半导体与聚三氟甲基磺胺钾混合从而克服了这个困难。这种混合物中包含了带正电荷的钾离子和带负电荷的聚三氟甲基磺胺离子。当接通电流后，两种离子在两个电极与高分子材料间是的运动方向是截然相反的。聚三氟甲基磺胺离子有助于在聚合物（3、4-亚甲基二氧乙烯噻吩）中形成空穴。
The result, as the team describe in ACS Nano, is a sheet that emits light in both directions and which it should be possible to make using industrial inkjet printers to spray layer upon layer. It is a truly enlightening idea.
正如该研究小组在美国化学学会（ACS）的《纳米技术》期刊中描述的那样，有机发光二极管是一种能够在两个方向上都发光的片体结构，该结构可使用工业喷墨打印机一层一层的喷涂而成。这实在是个好办法。 |
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