ETH-Zürich: Mechanical sensors from organic materials

Licensing opportunity

Researchers at ETH-Zürich, Switzerland, have developed an organic sensor system that senses mechanical influences such as acceleration or pressure, and that can be added to RFID identification tags to monitor the shipment of fragile retail goods – for example, whether they have been dropped or tilted ontheir way to a consumer. They are now looking to licence the invention.

RFID tags are mainly used just to identify specific products, but there is no efficient sensor system that could be integrated into the roll-to-roll production of RFID tags.

The Zürich invention achieves this capability by joining an intrinsically conductive piezoelectric polymer (such as the commercially available PEDOT or PSS) to a supporting substrate (which can be PET or polyimide).

Apart from standard photolithography, various printing processes are envisaged, including ink-jet printing, laser cutting, stamping and standard printing – which makes it particularly interesting for cheap roll-to-roll production, says the ETH.