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Cost-effective plastics to replace silicon

Under the patronage of the German Chamber of Trade and Commerce in Tokyo, twelve German companies and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) presented the first ''German Innovation Award - Gottfried Wagener Prize'' to five young researchers from the natural sciences and engineering in early March.

This distinction aims to strengthen and consolidate technological cooperation. First prize went to Dr. Takao Someya from the University of Tokyo. The electrical engineer was honoured for his research findings in the new field of polymer-based electronic components.

In the long term, inexpensive plastics can and should be able to replace silicon, a much more expensive substrate material previously used in chip production. Like Takao Someya, the researchers who came second and third, respectively, not only received a financial prize, but also a two-month DAAD research scholarship in Germany.

Takao Someya is already collaborating with colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart. The researchers complement each other, since Someya and his colleagues are particularly strong in the use of flexible, bendable and foldable plastic electronics, while the researchers from Stuttgart are leaders in terms of materials sciences.

The collaboration has already resulted in joint publications. The prize bears the name of Gottfried Wagener, a natural scientist from Göttingen, who taught physics and chemistry at Japanese universities at the end of the 19th century and is seen as one of the founding fathers of the Tokyo Institute of Technology.

Further information: http://tokyo.daad.de