Berlin 2008 – scientific programme

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DF: Fachverband Dielektrische Festkörper

DF 9: Poster

DF 9.8: Poster

Tuesday, February 26, 2008, 15:00–18:00, Poster G

Soft, flexible and conformable ferroelectret touchpad — •Gerda Buchberger, Reinhard Schwödiauer, and Siegfried Bauer — Soft Matter Physics, Johannes Kepler University, Altenbergerstr. 69, 4040 Linz, Austria

Flexible electronics is a driving impetus in plastic electronics. Besides displays, electronic components are required for the communication between the human users and the device, examples include touchpads or touchscreens. To be used in plastic electronics, such elements should be prepared as easy as possible, thereby complex array constructions of sensors are outruled. Here we describe a very simple, soft, flexible and conformable touchpad based on cellular ferroelectrets with a strong longitudinal piezoelectric effect. Thereby the device is insensitive to bending piezoelectricity and only activated by the touch of a user. Instead of array sensors, a large area sensor element is described with electronic components at the periphery. In order to determine the minimum number of electronic elements at the periphery, topological and symmetry arguments are employed. In addition the symmetry breaking of ferroelectrets along the thickness direction of the foil may be used to advantage. We describe a simple single touch input/output device, and present first investigations of the characteristics of the element. Work partially supported by the FWF.