Advanced Materials

This article concerns TactoTek in Oulu Finland and how its technologies can scale up and create billion dollar businesses.

Advances in laser technologies over the past three decades have enabled lasers to progress from specialist scientific instruments to a diverse range of end-user markets. In this article, time periods where data storage and data communication segments dominated the laser diode market are coloured yellow, while the current era of emerging laser diode applications in material processing, sensing and healthcare is indicated by green shading in the charts.

Key areas discussed and displayed at the LCV event include the battery, powertrain, lightweighting, autonomous driving and electric vehicle charging, from not only the technology but also business model and policy perspectives.

The key next iteration for fiber reinforced polymer products will be the concept of multifunctionality. This is the idea of making a structural part carry out additional role(s) beyond their current primary mechanical task - the market for smart composite material is forecast to exceed 5 kilotons by 2029.

This is a technological megatrend. Dumb load-bearing metal structures move to plastic and composite and incorporate energy harvesting and storage material - massless energy. Indeed you could call some of it negative mass energy. Goodbye components-in-a-box.

ITO alternative (TCFs) are no longer a young technology. They have been in the semi commercial mode for more than a decade and half. In that time, they have often come tantalising close to success, and in some instances, even carved out niche markets. Yet, they are still hoping for that great breakthrough. So why has the commercialization process been prolonged for so long?

In April 2018, IDTechEx gave a presentation at the world copper conference in Santiago Chile. This was part of work carried out for the International Copper Association to benchmark the commercial status of emerging conductive material. The presentation delivered can be seen below.

The need for flexible, transparent, ultrahigh performance, and low-cost barriers has long held back the promise of many flexible devices. Indeed, for long, it appeared as the grand challenge, and a potential showstopper.

IDTechEx will be hosting a free webinar on Thursday 13 September titled Graphene and Carbon Nanotube (CNT) Commercialization: Past, Present and Future.

LoC is a device that integrates one or several laboratory functions on a single integrated circuit (commonly called a "chip") to achieve automation and high-throughput screening for PoC.