Donata Nicolosi

All-Organic Motion Sensors: Electromechanical Modeling

A new class of materials called ionic polymer-polymer composites has been investigated to demonstrate the sensing and acting capabilities of these all-organic structures. Samples have been realized by covering Nafion membranes, with Orgacon 3040 conducting polymer as electrode material. Membranes whose electrodes were manufactured using the drop-casting technique exhibited the best electromechanical performances. Sensors have been tested in a dedicated experimental setup to model their electromechanical transduction behavior. Thus, the obtained model has been validated.

On the way to plastic computation

The development of post silicon technologies based on organic materials consolidates the possibility to realize new devices and applications with unusual properties: flexibility, lightweight, disposability. Both materials and processes play a fundamental role in this new electronic framework and have been improved continuously in the last decades. In this contribution, a new perspective will be drawn by considering a complete technology platform that lead printed organic electronics technology from the basic device and materials to a manufacturing process flow, design tools and market applications development. The final goal of the proposed approach is the manufacturing of organic circuits with sub-micron feature size at low fabrication costs with high flexibility and application versatility by using additive manufacturing processes. The identification of suitable material features and process steps and the implementation of dedicated CAD tools in a complete workflow are here reported. Moreover, the feasibility of the adopted technology is demonstrated by the design of both digital and analog circuits. Multilayered structure devices, like organic thin film transistor (OTFT), are used to design complex architectures like arithmetic logic units and nonlinear oscillators.

All organic actuation and sensing devices

In this work, all-organic structures with sensing and acting capabilities are prepared and tested. The devices have been realized by covering Nafionreg membranes with conducting polymers as electrode elements. The selection of both the materials and the deposition techniques has been addressed taking into account the chemical-physical characteristics of the membrane. Several tests have been performed in order to characterize both the morphological and electrical behavior of the obtained structures. The results show that it is possible to produce all-organic devices based on Nafionreg that have electromechanic transduction capacities. The possibility to use these devices both as sensing and acting elements has been demonstrated.

ORGANIC CHUA'S CIRCUIT

In this paper, an entire organic Chuas circuit is presented. The adopted technology is one of the most advanced in the post-silicon era and extends the applications of classical silicon devices. The electronic circuit design is based on Organic Thin-Film Transistors (OTFTs). New electronic blocks based on OTFT are designed to be suitable with the organic technology features. Typical dynamics of the Chuas circuit have been reproduced.

Nanoscale system dynamical behaviors: from quantum-dot-based cell to 1-D arrays

In this paper, we consider coupled quantum-dot cells, which are usually used for quantum-dot cellular automata, to build nanoscale dynamical systems. In particular, it is shown how the simple connection of few quantum-dot cells, quantum cellular nonlinear networks (Q-CNNs), can cause the onset of chaotic oscillations. Complex dynamics can be obtained only with small differences of polarizations and parameters. Local activity conditions are investigated for a two-cells case satisfying the criteria for the generation of complex spatio-temporal behaviors. The richness of dynamics of quantum CNNs is also emphasized through examples of synchronization in an array of so-built oscillators, in both cases of identical parameters and spatial dissymmetry.

Information exchanges in quantum arrays due to spatial diversity

The effects of parameter spatial disorder are investigated in quantum arrays focusing on collective behaviors and communication between connected units. The amount of information exchanged has been correlated to the global dynamics and the parameters of the complex systems. A two-cell Quantum Cellular Neural Networks (QCNNs) oscillator is chosen as fundamental unit; chaotic dynamics characterizes the oscillators coupled through Coulomb interaction. Depending on the diffusion coefficient, two opposite behaviors have been recognized: strong communication between the cells and break of the information exchanges among the systems. Spatial parametric dissymmetry, random and chaotic, has been introduced increasing the number of communicating cells. The application of the deterministic disorder gives better results than the random one. Spatial stochastic resonance effects are recognizable in the chaotic approach.

An all-organic technology platform for electronic devices manufacturing

In this work a complete and dedicated technology platform for all-organic electronic applications with micron and sub-micron feature-size is proposed. Both the organic technology and the design tools have been developed by considering organic materials to be deposited by solution techniques. The complete process flow has been defined in order to realize multilayered functional structures as all-organic active and passive devices. Feature sizes ranging from 50 nm up to 10 mum can be achieved according to the adopted solution processing techniques. The technology platform comprises also the CAD tools required for the design and realization of the all-organic devices.

Towards Biocompatible Sensing Devices: An IPMC Based Artificial Vestibular System

In this work the design and realization of an artificial vestibular system demonstrator is presented. The whole system is biologically inspired to the human vestibular apparatus. The mototransduction capabilities of ionomeric polymer-metal composite (IPMC) have been used in order to develop the prototype [1]. The reported results are the starting point to the future design and development of a miniaturized artificial vestibular system, integrating biocompatible materials and all-organic electronic devices [2].

Battery Modelling in Embedded Systems

Progress in battery technology is closely tied to that in electronics. The fast development in battery-powered portable systems and the increasing demand for longer run time and lighter weight handheld devices is driving battery makers to make new investments and researches into new battery technologies. This resulted in a great improvement in energy density, shelf life and reliability of batteries. However the battery technology progresses are very slow compared to the ones in the electronic field. A typical battery-powered System is represented in Figure 1 [1]. This system is present in portable devices such as laptop computers, cellular phones, etc. It consists of the VLSI circuit, the dc-dc converter and the battery.