Interview with Huang Wei, the Academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences and Foreign Academician of Russian Academy of Sciences
【CCN】 What are the major application fields of flexible electronics technology? What are the current development situations of flexible electronics industry in China and aboard? What are the characteristics?
【Huang Wei】 Basically, flexible electronics is an emerging, interdisciplinary science and technology that deposits organic, inorganic or organic-inorganic composite (hybrid) materials on flexible substrates to form electronic (electronics, optoelectronics, photonics) components and integrated systems represented by circuits. Flexible electronics were first used in the second-generation display - liquid crystal display. Such application was generally formed as early as the 20th century, and replaced the first-generation display-CRT display—that had been popular in the market for over half of the 21st century after rapid changes in technology to occupy a dominant market position. The third-generation display is OLED display, namely organic electroluminescence display.
The industrial development of flexible electronics has its own context to follow, and is constantly expanding in new directions. It is in the process of rapid growth and expansion. On the basis of in-depth research and development, some innovative achievements have emerged in flexible electronic technology, and some disruptive and transformative technologies have been formed. These technologies have also further consolidated the foundation of related emerging industries and future industries, and have nurtured new products and even new formats with considerable potential, which will lead the future social and economic development.
In fact, China’s flexible electronics industry started early and has a first-mover advantage and plays a leading role in some emerging fields.
【CCN】 What is the status of new-type flexible materials in China’s electronic materials industry? Which directions are you more optimistic about with the continuous deepening of the research?
【Huang Wei】 At present, the main body of advanced electronic materials is still dominated by inorganic semiconductors represented by silicon, with a market size of about trillions RMB. The emerging flexible electronic material market is in rapid development. IDTechEx predicted that the market size of flexible electronic materials will reach nearly RMB2 trillion by 2028.
Currently, flexible materials take up a relatively small proportion of advanced electronic materials but have great growth potential in five-to-eight years. Given its overall stable development, the electronic materials market has rarely seen very high growth and its annual growth rate is capped at 3-5%, while the flexible electronic market can realise a surge of 100%, 300%, 500% or even higher and the key lies in whether certain technologies can translate into large-scale manufacturing capabilities in a short period of time.
As for domestic enterprises, some advanced electronic materials, especially organic chips are highly reliant on imports, but the situation is likely to change in next three-to-five years and these products can be domestically made.
【CCN】 What are the “stuck neck” problems in the current flexible electronic technology? What are you suggestions?
【Huang Wei】 Based on my observations, a majority of the so called “stuck neck” problems are determined by supply-demand conditions. That is to say the supply-demand imbalance cannot be well adjusted in a short period of time, resulting in a seemingly supply crunch in the market. For instance, if an industry suddenly develops rapidly, but the existing manufacturers curbed by their production scale and research force have extremely limited capacity and are hard to supply products in a short term. But this is a normal process. We cannot simply describe most such problems as “stuck neck”. Instead, we shall correctly and objectively understand and evaluate the development of industries and technologies.
【CCN】 What are your teams focus on flexible electronics during the “14th Five-Year Plan” period?
【Huang Wei】 At present, we have some related projects under implementation. For instance, in terms of X-ray scintillators, we realize the detection process by converting X-rays into visible light. We expect that this can greatly reduce the X-ray dose, even by two to four magnitudes. In this way, the harmful radiation to the human body from the X-ray detection systems used in many scenarios in our lives, such as airports, train stations and various conference venues will be greatly reduced. The research and development of the above flexible and dynamic X-ray detection system has been supported by the National Ministry of Science and Technology's Transformative Technology Special Project in 2020, and will be introduced to the market during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period. Our team is constantly undertaking and expanding similar projects.
(China Chemical News (CCN) is the Sister magazine of CCR. It is a comprehensive chemical journal in Chinese and also belongs to CNCIC. )
